


The Future Waits For No One

by BrownieFox



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: 'cause no one got time for that two hiccup nonsense, Character Death Mentioned, Gen, Older Hiccup is being called Horrendous, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel AU, Trust me on this one, Yes I'm Making Another One, i love stoick a lottt, time craziness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17705963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: After getting caught in a storm, Hiccup wakes up in his house.Six years in the past.The gods sure seem to have it out for him.On a momentary hiatus: I need to cement what I want to happen before I can go forwards





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Hiccup woke up, it was with a start, jolting upward, heart beating as a dream he couldn’t remember evaporated back into the ether. Pain seared through his head and with a groan Hiccup fell back down onto the pillow beneath him. It felt like his head was splitting in two. 

Something shifted next to him, and Hiccup turned his head in the direction of it. There was a lit candle next to his bed, and the light was painful and searing. He shut his eyes, raising the blanket to cover his head. 

“Toothless?” Hiccup croaked out, “Mom?”

“You’re okay. Get some rest.” Something heavy and warm settled over Hiccup’s shoulder, felt even through the blanket, accompanied by the familiar deep and gruff voice of his dad. Hiccup relaxed, flailing a hand out of his tightly-bundled form and grabbing his dad’s hand. 

“Dad.” He breathed, only able to focus on that one thing. “Dad.”

 

oOo

 

The second time Hiccup woke up, his head still hurt, but not nearly as much. 

He pulled the blanket off of his head and looked around the room. There was the faintest of light streaming in from the closed windows. The room looked familiar, but he couldn’t exactly place it. The candle that he seen lit was now out, and Hiccup frowned a bit upon not seeing Toothless around, nor a proper bed for a dragon. Most houses in Berk now had them. 

As he shifted around, he found that his armor had been taken off, as well as all of his weapons. He was still wearing his pants at least, and his prosthetic was still attached, but there were bandages carefully wrapped around the right side of his chest and a dull pain that accompanied them. All of the rest of his things were in a pile near the foot of the bed.

Hiccup rubbed his head as he tried to remember what had happened. He clearly had hit his head. He could vaguely remember waking up for a short period of time and tried to remember what had happened. There had been somebody here, somebody with a deep voice… his first instinct was to say it was his dad, but Stoick had died half a year ago. Maybe Gobber? Or maybe he wasn’t on Berk at all and it was somebody he hadn’t known.

He attempted to think back farther, to what he’d hurt his head doing. He could remember flying with the Toothless, approaching some unfamiliar rock formations as a storm ravaged around them. There had been a bright light… and it all faded from there. 

“Toothless?” Hiccup whispered, as if the dragon would just suddenly appear out of the shadows, but the room remained empty save for himself. 

Setting the problem aside for now, Hiccup continued to inspect the room he was in. The bed was huge, clearly made for a man much bigger than himself. On the bedside table was a plate of bread and soup sitting next to a cup of water that Hiccup immediately dug into, not having realized just how hungry he was until there was food in front of him. He looked around at the rest of the room and felt his heat plummet as he saw, mounted above the bed, a dragon skull. 

Hiccup set the food aside so he could stand on the bed and get a better look at the huge skull. It definitely used to be a monstrous nightmare, the horns very distinct, and there were scratches in the skull that told a sickening story of what it took to down the beast. He looked around, now at his higher position, and his eyes lingered on another skull sitting on the other side of the bed - deadly nadder - and a map set up on one wall. 

He recognized the islands on the map, easily able to pick out Berk on it. There were x’s in red, furiously scratched on, going out into the unknown mists of the map that the chief recognized as being where the dragon nest of the Red Death had been. There were also black x’s, set more around the islands. The edges of the map - in fact, the edges of most things in the room - were charred around the edges. 

He sent out a silent prayer to the gods that wherever Toothless was, he was safe from these vikings who were apparently still at war with dragons. 

The door to the room opened, and Hiccup froze where he was, relaxing when he saw Gobber come through with some more food. It also confused him, and he looked around the room again. This wasn’t Gobber’s house - _ that _ , he was sure of - so where was he? Why didn’t Gobber just bring him to his own room?

“Oh good, your awake.” Gobber set down the food on the table in front of the map, smiling and Hiccup. “We were afraid you’d taken one hit too many to the head.” 

“Yeah, well, I’ve been told I’ve got a thick skull.” Hiccup shrugged. 

“Well, now that you’re coherent, I’ll go get the chief. A good thing too, he’s setting sail soon.”

Hiccup faltered, brow furrowing as what Gobber said sank in, but by the time he’d put together words to ask what he meant, the man was already back out the door. Hiccup moved to follow him, but then thought better of it. He didn’t know what was going on here or what he would see out there. Better to stay in here, where at least this chief was coming and he may get some answers.

Gobber had brought a candle with the food, and Hiccup carefully picked it up to get an even better view of the room. There were no other dragon skulls, but there was a rather large collection of axes and swords hung up on one of the walls. When Hiccup inspected them he found them all still sharp and touching one of the blades left a small knick on his finger. He winced, imagining them being used against dragons. 

He couldn’t shake the familiarity of the room, and the more time Hiccup spent in it the more uncomfortable he became. He abandoned trying to figure out the room, and to get his mind off the anxiety of waiting, he inspected his wound, peeling back the bandages. He knew, of course, that it was the last thing he should be doing, but he was curious. What he found beneath, he was familiar with. Puncture wounds that he easily matched up with Toothless’ teeth. They were well on their way to healing, and while Hiccup couldn’t exactly remember how he got them he trusted that Toothless had a good reason for it. After bandaging the wound, Hiccup put his clothes and armor back on. He felt better just wearing it and breathed a sigh of relief as he found everything was, indeed, accounted for. 

The door creaked open again, and Hiccup turned around.

Anything he was going to say caught in his throat at who he saw.

Stoick the Vast, his father, the man who had taken a blast from Toothless for him, who Hiccup had sent off to Valhalla himself, was standing there, staring at Hiccup with nearly the same expression the man had worn upon seeing Valka for the first time in twenty years. He looked absolutely speechless, approaching Hiccup slowly, carefully, one hand extended outwards. Hiccup felt tears welling up at the sight of his father, alive and breathing despite knowing that there was no way he could be here, absolutely no possible way.

Hiccup couldn’t stop himself from closing the distance between them and clinging onto the man who looked like his father, even still had the musty but warm smell he did, slightly salty, a bit ashy. The man wrapped his arms around Hiccup in return, and they just stood there for a moment, Hiccup drinking in the man that looked so so much like Stoick, that he desperately wanted to be. After a few heartbeats like that, Hiccup checked himself and pulled back, wiping away the tears and attempting to regain some semblance of composure, trying to be on guard because he was just more confused than ever.

“Are you okay? You weren’t in a great shape when we found you.” Stoick’s eyes were critically inspecting Hiccup, and the expression of such vulnerability Hiccup had seen just moments ago was already fading, though a bit of it remained.

Hiccup opened his mouth, trying to figure out how to respond to that. He closed his mouth again, searching for the words, and then finally spoke.

“I… yeah, yeah I think I’m okay.” Hiccup was aware he probably didn’t look very okay, shaking and on the verge of break down and hugging the man again. “Is… did I die? Is this Valhalla?” Stoick chuckled.

“No, it’s not Valhalla. We’ve been waiting a few days for you to wake up. So, son, I’m Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk. What’s your name?”

And the world came to a stop.

Hiccup stared at his dad more, but this time in shock, brain working away. His dad… didn’t recognize him? Was  _ alive  _ to begin with? He’d been ready to just accept it, that he was dead or that his dad was magically back, but his dad not knowing who he was? It was crushing.

“Hey, uh, dad? Gobber said you’d be- oh. He’s awake.”

To make everything even more confusing,  _ Hiccup himself  _ walked in front of the doorway. 

He was… so short. His freckles were way more pronounced than they were on himself, and Hiccup’s eyes were drawn to the leg, still flesh and blood, on the smaller boy. He’s significantly older than this teenager in front of him. And when he sees this  _ kid, _ the gears in Hiccup’s head start moving again, fast, as he processes what’s in front of him.

His dad alive. 

Himself with his leg.

The room he’s in - he now recognizes. His dad’s room in the last house they had before renovating it to suit dragons.

The conclusion he came to is insane, but there’s no time to stop and debate it.

“Horrendous.” Hiccup - now Horrendous apparently - said, prompting the younger Hiccup and Stoick to return their attention to him. Hiccup’s brow furrowed, but Stoick just smiled. 

“Horrendous.” Stoick repeated, clapping Hiccup on the shoulder. “My son’s middle name is Horrendous.”

_ Yeah,  _ Hiccup thought,  _ Trust me, I know.  _ When he was younger (even younger than his mini replica before him) he had tried to convince the entire village to call him Horrendous instead of Hiccup. It didn’t work, probably since he was, well, Hiccup, and his attempts only made Snotlout call him Hiccup with even more vigor.

“Thank you for bandaging me.” Horrendous put his hand over where the bite was. Okay. In the past. He could probably deal with this. He felt his face flush a bit with heat at he suddenly realized what had happened moments before. “Uh, Stoick, I’m, uh, you look a lot like my dad, he was killed not too long ago-” 

“It’s okay.” Stoick held up a hand to stop Horrendous’s stuttering episode. “I was no help either. You look a lot like somebody I once knew, too. Now, why don’t you follow me to the docks. I’m going on a voyage to find Helheim’s Gate. I wish you’d woken up sooner, so that we could have talked more.” Stoick led the way outside, and immediately Horrendous noticed just how empty the village seemed without dragons everywhere. It was almost eerie, like a bad dream, but the pain in his shoulder told him this was no dream. This, as impossible as it seemed, was real.

“Where did you find me?” Horrendous asked. Maybe it could lend some clue to how he ended up here.

“A few days ago, you washed up on shore. Hiccup was actually the one that spotted you.” Stoick nodded over to his son, and Horrendous was hit by how ironic that was. “You looked half-drowned, and your wounds suggested you were attacked by dragons. You were the only one we found, though, so if you had a crew, they probably didn’t make it.”

“Why were you sailing so close to Berk?” Hiccup asked, seeming to have forgotten what he had planned to tell his dad in favor of find out more about Horrendous.

Horrendous did his best not to wince as an idea came to him. It could work, and help him stay close to his family while he figured this out, but… if felt like a low blow. But what choice did he have?

“I was, uh, looking for a cousin of mine.” He said, disliking how the lie sat bitter in his mouth. “Her name is Valka.”

Stoick came to a stop.

“She was my wife. I’m afraid she was killed in a dragon raid.” The grief was still so fresh in Stoick’s voice. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

“Oh.” Horrendous said, stomach churning. Not only was he not Valka’s cousin, he knew that she was alive and out there, with Cloudjumper and the Alpha.

“But if you’re part of her family, you can stay as long as you need to.” Stoick smiled at Horrendous, looking over his features again. He looked so much like his mom that it wasn’t a hard lie to get Stoick to believe. 

They walked in silence for a moment as the memory of Valka passed over them. When they reached the boats, Hiccup stepped forward, clenched first shaking a bit, and Horrendous knew what the other was going to say.

“Dad, listen, I can’t- The whole Dragon Training thing-”

“You’ll finally be a real viking.” Stoick proclaimed proudly. Horrendous and Hiccup both winced at that. 

“No, you’re not listening. I- dad, I  _ really  _ think I should just stay Gobber’s apprentice. I mean, somebody has to keep repairing weapo-”

“I was a blacksmith’s apprentice.” Horrendous cut in. He knew how this conversation was going to end, but maybe he could something out of it. “If your son is worried about the forge so much, I could help out your blacksmith so he can focus on his Dragon Training. If I’m staying, I need to do something to earn my keep anyway.” 

Stoick grinned and gestured to Horrendous.

“See, Hiccup? The forge will be fine.” 

Hiccup made a sound like he was going to protest again, but Horrendous put his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder before he could get anything out.

“Hiccup, why doesn’t you show me where your forge is so I can get acquainted with it?”

Hiccup looked back to his dad, but Stoick was already on board the ship, helping with the final preparations.

“Yeah, follow me.”

The forge was smaller than the one from Horrendous’s time, but that was to be expected. Gobber didn’t need the room for all of the riding equipment he was making and/or fixing, and he also didn’t have several dragons running around. Hiccup half-heartedly showed him where the furnace and tools were and Horrendous half-heartedly listened. 

Okay. He’d secured a job, a fake name, and a fake reason to be here. Now he just needed to find out how to get home. Hopefully without messing things up too badly. He hadn’t thought much about time travel before, but sometimes Fishlegs would talk about paradoxes and stuff from books he’d read. None of it ever sounded any good. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Ah, Hiccup, there you are. Can’t have you miss your first day of Dragon Training.” Gobber limped into the the forge. “And I see you’ve made a new friend. Gobber the Belch, nice to meet you.” 

“Horrendous the, uh… Crafter.” Horrendous shook Gobber’s hand. “I’ll be helping you out around here so that Hiccup can focus on his training.”

“Good to see ya up and moving, you were out for four days!” Four days. Great. He was already four days into this whole fiasco and he hadn’t even done anything yet. That was four days where Toothless was on his own.

Horrendous swallowed down a lump in his throat at the thought of his friend. What if Toothless had drowned out at sea, or had injured himself and wasn’t able to hunt and was starving to death? He felt his heartbeat pick up, breaths getting shorter, chest feeling like there were ropes around it, constricting, tightening.

“Are you okay?” Hiccup asked, and Horrendous stumbled backward a bit at seeing the younger kid, back hitting a table of tools in for sharpening, a few knives falling off the table and clattering to the ground. Gods, what was he doing?! What was all of this?! He was in the  _ past!  _ His heartbeat was filling his ears, and some part of him was aware he was having a panic attack. 

Did anybody know he was gone yet? What would happen to his village? Would his mom have to take over? Snotlout? How long would they spend searching? What if Toothless wasn’t even here, but trying find him back in the future? 

“C’mon, breath with me boy.” 

Horrendous blinked, trying to focus on the voice. Gobber. 

Just past the roar in his ears, Horrendous could hear an exaggerated inhale and exhale. Something younger in him caught onto to it quickly as the two simple actions cycled through. In. Out. His chest shook from the effort of not speeding up his breathing again. 

What if Stoick finds out he can ride dragons, and banishes him from Berk?

Horrendous’s breathing picked up again and then there was a hand tight on his shoulder and metal on his other. He pushed through the panic, finding the slow breathing rhythm in front of him again and did his best to mimic it. 

When he was no longer hyperventilating, he realized that at some point during his panic attack he had fallen to the floor and curled up into himself. Gobber was kneeling down in front of him, hand and hook on his shoulders. He wasn’t doing the deep breaths anymore, but his eyebrows were raised. Horrendous shook his head, clearing the last of it, and climbed back to his feet.

“Are you okay?”  Hiccup repeated, standing off to the side, and Horrendous didn’t freak out this time. Hiccup himself actually seemed freaked out. Horrendous rubbed a hand down his face, letting out a long and slow breath.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I, uh, I haven’t done  _ that  _ since I was a kid.” Horrendous scratched the back of his head, avoiding eye contact with the other two. 

“Nothing to be embarrassed about!” Gobber gave Horrendous a pat on the back strong enough to make him stumble forward a step. “Hiccup here used to panic when he was little too! Had to learn how to calm him down. Now then, let’s get you to Dragon Training, Hiccup.”

Horrendous waited until they were gone before sitting down on the floor again, closing his eyes as he waited for the tremors that still ran through him to stop. He’d forgotten just how terrible those attacks felt. Despite everything he had been through the past few years, they hadn’t resurfaced until today. Then again, this was a whole other brand of stressful than he was used to.

Once he was calm again and could trust his legs to hold him upright, Horrendous stood back up. He contemplated for a moment whether or not he should go and check out the Dragon Training. It would be interesting - maybe even fun - to watch the young him and his riders, his eventually best friends, running around like chickens with their head chopped off as the terrible terror chased them around, but he didn’t want to get there, see them, and have another internal crisis. 

So instead he headed in the other direction, towards the woods. He was going to find Toothless, he had to start somewhere.

The woods, like the village, were quiet in a way that Horrendous wasn’t used to. But they were also comforting and familiar, not nearly as different as the village was. Even if he didn’t find Toothless out here, he’d probably made a good choice. Here, away from everything else, he could clear his head a bit more. 

“Toothless!” Horrendous cupped his hands to his mouth and called out. The dragon had impeccable hearing, and if he was on the island he should hear his name and come. Unless Toothless was hurt. Horrendous quickly pushed the thought out of his head before it could run away with him again. Toothless had survived before him and would be fine on his own for a few days, absolutely nothing to worry about. “C’mon out buddy!”

But the night fury didn’t come forth, running and relieved to see Horrendous again. After an hour or so of walking and calling, Horrendous found a cliff and sat down on the edge with a sigh. He couldn’t say he was terribly surprised that he wasn’t finding Toothless. If the dragon was on the island he surely would’ve gone to the village first and foremost. For a moment the idea that that was exactly what the dragon had done crossed Horrendous’s mind but he brushed it off. No, surely if that had happened there would still be celebrating, or his corpse hung up somewhere, or  _ something. _ After all, these people hadn’t even seen a night fury before, killing one would’ve been a big deal.

_ A big deal we both gave up,  _ Horrendous thought with a small smile, thinking of the young and awkward Hiccup. Somewhere out in these woods was the night fury that the kid had shot down, but Horrendous had no desire to find him, content to sit back and let Hiccup meet his best friend in his own time. 

As he stared out at the sea, he thought about his dad out there. He’d just gotten him back, only for the man to leave. Horrendous wasn’t sure whether or not he hoped he was still stuck here in the month it would take for his dad to return. There were so many more things he hadn’t gotten to say to Stoick before he died. Then again, it wasn’t really  _ his  _ dad, and the chief didn’t even know Horrendous was his son. 

He supposed, though, that if he had to be stuck in the past anywhere, he wasn’t too upset about it being Berk. Dragons or not, past or future, this island and its people were his home. 

“Don’t worry, Toothless. If you’re out there, I’ll find you.” Horrendous whispered, letting the wind carry his words away.

His search wouldn’t get very far very fast, however, without something to ride on. 

 

oOo

 

Cloudjumper landed behind Valka, crooning to her, and the dragon rider got set down her half-eaten fish, going over to the dragon and setting her hand on his snout.

“What is it?” She asked, and the stormcutter lowered himself farther to the ground, a clear message to get on his back. After grabbing her armor and mask, quickly strapping them on, she swung up behind his frills. She felt as the muscles underneath his scales tensed as the dragon approached the edge of their perch and then jumped out, wings unfolding and catching the air before pumping downward, rising higher into the air. The scuttleclaw hatchlings, teeth just coming in, chirped at them as they left and Valka mimicked the sound back as best she could.

She couldn’t keep the grin off of her face as she watched her home pass by, the large and impressive spikes of ice as familiar to her as the huts of Berk once were. Dragons looked up at them as they passed by, a few taking flight and flying with them for a moment, others calling out greetings. 

Flying just outside of the Sanctuary was a deadly nadder, who squawked at Cloudjumper and then lead the way. Valka had to admit she was curious where they were taking her. Usually she was the one that orchestrated raids against Drago’s ships - ever increasing in quantity and frequency - and usually they allowed her to scout them out, then pick the dragons she suited best for the job. 

They stopped at one point by a scauldron, a pile of dead fish by him. The dragons chattered for a moment before both the deadly nadder and Cloudjumper filled their mouths with fish, but didn’t eat them, and took off again. The cold air whipped past them, and Valka peered down at the cold snowy tundra below. The deadly nadder flew low to the ground, clearly tracking something, and Valka could just barely make out tracks in the snow. 

Gray mountains rose up and the dragons slowed down, landing outside of a dark cave that time and weather had bore into the stone. The opening was too small for Cloudjumper, and the dragon opened his mouth and let the fish fall to the ground outside of it. Valka swung down from him, following the deadly nadder into the cave. 

They were greeted by a warning growl from a dragon too far back in the cave to be heard. The deadly nadder dropped his fish, pushing a few of them with his nose towards the dragon. Valka twirled her staff around, the rattling hopefully calming the dragon down. She could make out green eyes, warry slits trained on the deadly nadder as the dragon steadily edged closer to them. 

“It’s alright.” She whispered, staying a respectful distance away. 

The dragon’s eyes flickered over to her and straightened out of his low and defensive crouch. He darted forward, grabbing a bite of the fish and then tackled her. From outside Cloudjumper growled but cut off when it was obvious she wasn’t in trouble, the dragon sniffing her thoroughly and giving her a very slobbery lick, then jumping off. 

Now that he was in the light, she had a good view of him and couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her lips. She could count the night furies she had seen on one hand, and here was another before. The ones she’d met had all been very wary of strangers, cautious, never taking their eyes on her, never letting her even get close. This one’s pupils were wide and friendly, tongue lolling out of his mouth. When the deadly nadder started eating the fish, the night fury turned his back to her in favor of eating more of the fish.

She slowly approached him, just incase the dragon suddenly decided he was no longer okay with her presence, and stared at the rigging on him with wide eyes. She had seen dragons with armor forcefully strapped onto them before, but this was something new. There was a study leather saddle on his back, straps going over his throat, stomach, and forelegs to keep it in place. Her eyes followed a particular rope connected to one of the stirrups that trailed along his back, all the way down to his tail fins.

“Oh dear, what did they do to you?” She brushed her hand against a ruined red piece of fabric where the fin should’ve been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter than the last one, but if felt like a good place to end it!  
> Should answer the most popular question out there.  
> Feel free to ask any questions :D


	3. Chapter 3

During the first four days after Horrendous had washed up on Berk, while he slept fitfully, Hiccup hadn’t known what to make of the man. Now that the guy was awake, he still was unsure about him.

Hiccup had been the one to spot him. There were no other men, not even ship debri with him, just a man that Hiccup had, at first, thought to be dead. When he’d realized that wasn’t the case, he ran back up to the village to get his dad and Gobber, knowing they would know what to do with the man. Stoick had stared at him like he was seeing a ghost, and Gobber had explained to Hiccup a little later that the man had an almost uncanny resemblance to to his mom. Hiccup supposed that was probably why, instead of saddling another household with watching the man, or even just putting him in the Meade Hall, Stoick had given him his own bed.

Hiccup had gone in there a few times, staring at the man and trying to figure out what his mom looked like with this random guy being the only clue. He didn’t look much like a viking, in an armor that looked more like leather, or, oddly enough, dragon hide. Maybe he was some kind of famous dragon killer, Hiccup had mused, that had come to help with their war for some reason.

The small viking definitely hadn’t liked the man when he’d used Hiccup’s excuse as a way to get a job.

He’d also definitely felt sorry for the man when he had a panic attack in the forge.

When Dragon Training was over, Hiccup almost dying from a blast from the gronkle, he swung by the forge to see what the man was doing now, but he was nowhere to be seen. Some parts of his armor were sitting around, the parts that looked most like dragon scales, and Hiccup resisted the urge to run his hand across it. No, he shouldn’t be touching someone’s else’s belongings. Instead, he pushed it aside and grabbed his notebook, heading out into the woods.

He followed his self-made map back to where he’d found the night fury (a bit harder to read after he’d scribbled across it in frustration) and examined the remains of his bola.

“If all dragons go for the kill… why didn’t you?” Hiccup whispered.

He followed the trail of ruined foliage through the forest. It was unlikely the night fury was still here, but… well, it was a night fury, never before seen until now. He just had to try and get one last look at it.

The path led him to a cove, high cliffs surrounding a small pool of water. It was picturesque, and Hiccup just started to lean out into it when the night fury launched himself up at the cliff side, claws scraping the rock, before falling back down and gliding to a landing, howling in frustration. Hiccup scooted a little closer and pulled out his notebook, sketching the beast out quickly as he watched him continue to charge up the walls, wings beating and lifting him off the ground for a moment before he fell back down.

His charcoal slipped from his hands, clattering to the ground of the cove and Hiccup held his breath as the dragon turned around and looked up at him. He scrambled back through the hole he’d come through, praying the dragon didn’t give chase.

The sun was starting to go down, the faint image of it just barely able to seen from behind the clouds, and Hiccup sighed. Right. Dinner. He wasn’t looking forward to having to face the other teens after the display today. Still, though, he was hungry, and so he trudged his way back to the village while the sky grew darker and rain began to fall. And it was on his way that he saw Horrendous.

The man looked deep in thought, chin resting on his fist as he made his way towards the village. His limp was far more pronounced than it had been earlier, and Hiccup had almost forgotten the mad a prosthetic foot. He didn’t seem to notice Hiccup until the boy was almost right on top of him, and his noticeably flinched when he looked at him.

“Oh, uh, hey Hiccup. What, uh, what were you doing out here? I thought you had Dragon Training?” Horrendous’s eyes seemed to continually dart to and away from Hiccup and it made him uneasy. A lot about the guy actually made him easy.

“It ended a bit ago, so I went for a walk. Just a walk, to, uh, see if I could find a dragon. Y’know, kill one early.” Hiccup hoped he sounded like he meant it. Horrendous let out a huff of air through his nose, like a small laugh.

“Did you find one?” He asked, a smile tugging on the edge of his mouth.

“No!” Hiccup replied a little too quickly, and this time Horrendous chuckled.

“Okay. Let’s get to dinner.”

 

oOo

 

“Horrendous, you can sit here!”

Horrendous sighed with relief as Gobber called him over. He wouldn’t know where else to sit, Gobber and Hiccup being the only ones he had technically met. The other vikings gave him curious and cautious looks as he passed by and he did his best not to let it bother him.

“Gobber, I meant to tell you earlier, but Stoick agreed to let me help out with the forge.” Horrendous said as he sat down. He shook his head a bit, flicking some water around.

“Ah, a blacksmith, eh? Well, there’s always work to be done!” Gobber accented his statement by lifting his hook-now-tankard hard into the air, spilling some meade on the table, and taking a big swig from it. Horrendous took a small sip of his own just as the younger versions of his friends flocked to the table like a pack of terrible terrors perching on Gothi.

“Hey, it’s the dead guy!” Tuffnut cried and pointed at him.

“Careful, you saw that bite! I bet he’s a lycanwing.” Ruffnut elbowed her twin.

“Well aren’t you guys just delightful.” Horrendous said, voice dripping with sarcasm but smiling at them. “I’m Horrendous.”

“I don’t know, I’d say you’re pretty gorgeous.” Ruffnut waggled her eyebrows at him. Horrendous nearly choked on his meade. Coughing, he set his mug down again.

“Ew, gross, he’s like twice your age.” Snotlout wrinkled his nose.

“I’m only 21.” Horrendous once his throat was clear again.

“How’d you lose your leg?” Tuffnut asked, pushing his sister aside. “Was it gory?”

“Where are you form?” Astrid asked, arms folded and eyes regarding him warily.

“What happened to your boat?” Even Hiccup seemed curious. Horrendous held up his hands in surrender.

“Whoa, slow down, I’m just one guy. I lost my leg to a dragon, no he didn’t bite it off completely, but he damage was irreparable so it was just chopped off. I think it was probably gory? I was unconscious at the time. I’m, uh… from all over! My parents were, uh, traveling merchants. But they’re dead now. Yeah. My boat, right. A…. night fury! Yes, a night fury attacked it.”

Horrendous prayed he sounded more confident than he felt saying the lie. During his walk earlier he had cobbled together a story, but he was rough on the details. That seemed to satisfy the teens for now, though Ruffnut was still looking at him weirdly and winking everytime she thought he was looking. Both Astrid and Hiccup didn’t look completely convinced with his story, and he made a mental note to try and polish it up. If he knew these two (and gods knew he did) then they weren’t going to just let this drop.

“Alright, enough of that. Now, let’s talk about your training today. Where did you Hiccup go wrong?” Gobber wrangled the conversation.

“Uh, he showed up?” Snotlout snorted.

“He wasn’t where he’s supposed to be.” Astrid said, giving a glare at the boy, and Horrendous shot the kid a sympathetic look. Sure he knew things would get better, but this days had been rough.

“Good Astrid!” Gobber praised. “You need to be living and breathing this stuff! And no better way than the book of dragons.” Gobber slid the book down the table to where all of the kids were sitting, and Horrendous almost laughed at how thin it looked.”It has everything you need to know about the dragons you’ll be learning to kill, some of which you won’t even be training up against.”

“You want us to read?! While we’re still alive?!” Ruffnut pulled away from the table like the book was poisonous.

“Do we look like we’re all Fishlegs?!” Tuffnut stuck out his tongue

“The best way to learn is to just kill the dragons!” Snotlout declared.

“Oh man, this is one of my favorites!” Fishlegs was practically vibrating in place. “I’ve read it, like fifteen times.”

“Study up kids.” Gobber stood up as a crack of thunder shook the Hall. “No need to worry about raids tonight. No dragon can burn down a village in the middle of a storm. Horrendous, why don’t you just stay at Stoick’s house for now? We’ll worry about something more permanent later.”

The thought of not living in his house bothered Horrendous, but he nodded anyway and said a quick ‘thank you’ as Gobber left, back out into the rain. Horrendous sighed as he was reminded of the stormy weather. He’d known it was coming, the stump of his leg aching, but it had only been about when Hiccup had caught him leaving the forest that he’d put together that it meant there’d be no dragons around. He didn’t want to steal one from the Dragon Training. He was the new and unknown probably shady guy in town, people would probably suspect him first. And anyway, he’d feel like he was stealing from his friends, even if the dragons weren’t paired up with their riders yet.

Next to him, Hiccup gave his own sigh as Astrid walked off, leaving just the two of them and the book.

“Hey, Hiccup.” The kid flinched, almost falling off of his seat, clearly having forgotten that Horrendous was there.

“Uh, yeah, Horrendous?”

“I traveled around a lot, like I said. I probably know more about dragons than that book of yours there does. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.” Horrendous offered. Hiccup nodded, thoughts clearly somewhere else, and together the two of them got up and headed out into the storm, the tome held close to Hiccup to protect it from the rain.

It was coming down in a torrent, and Horrendous hissed under his breath as he sprinted through it with his younger self, his limp growing more and more pronounced. When they made it to their house, it was all he could do not to collapse where he was. He shook his head again, droplets of water flying through the air, and almost started to head to his bedroom before he caught himself.

Right. Not his room.

He said a quick goodnight to Hiccup and limped into his dad’s room, closing the door behind him. He flopped onto the bed, removing his prosthetic quickly and starting to massage the stump in an effort to get it to feel better. Gods above, it didn’t usually hurt this bad. Sure, whenever it rained or snowed of hailed - all very often occurrences in Berk - it didn’t feel _nice,_ but apparently the stress was getting to it too.

Horrendous lay like that for a while, eyes closed, listening to the thundering, room lit every so often by a flash of lightning, the rain drumming against the roof of his house. Hiccup was no doubt in his own room, leafing through the pages of the book of dragons, eventually reaching the blank night fury page and being bewildered at how little was known about the the ‘unholy union of lightning and death’.

He opened his eyes again and sat up, looking over to the wall map. There was a piece of charcoal for writing by it, as well as parchment, and Horrendous hopped over to them, grabbing them and setting to work sketching. Hiccup would be working hard in the workshop soon. That left a small window of time for Horrendous to get his stuff done. He needed a saddle that could work with whatever species of dragon he happened to tame (hopefully) tomorrow.

He was Chief Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.

He was going to find his dragon and find a way back home.


	4. Chapter 4

Horrendous woke up early the next day, stretching and massaging his stump a bit more. There was a still a bit of a lasting ache, but the rain had stopped at some point during the night. He looked over the designs he’d drawn up the night before, nodding in satisfaction. It would be able to fit most dragons, with a few minor adjustments needed if it was one of the species you had to ride on their neck. If worst came to worst, though, he’d just bareback with maybe a piece of rope to help hold on until he found a chance to make a more suitable saddle. 

He spent most of the morning putting the saddle together in between sharpening axes and swords. It wasn’t his best work, but he had to work with what was on hand and he didn’t want to use up too many materials. Hiccup still needed to make his own saddle and Toothless’s tail. Horrendous stashed the saddle back at the Haddock house for now, underneath his dad’s bed where Hiccup hopefully wouldn’t find it. He brushed off watching the Dragon Training again and picked up fish from the Great Hall before going back out into the woods.

He found a high ledge, a place he used to regularly rest with Toothless, that was far enough from the village that nobody would see or hear him. Dragons were sure to be wary, what with the vikings killing them every time they came near the island, but hopefully at least one would be brave or stupid enough to make an appearance. 

Horrendous dumped the fish out in a pile and sat down next to it, staring out at the sea. The world was still damp from the storm last night and branches sat in odd scattered piles. He pulled out a pile of parchment he’d brought from Stoick’s room and the charcoal stick, folding his legs up and using them as a table as he sketched out as much of Toothless’s saddle and rigging from memory as he could. He’d made it so many times and had messed around with it that he had it pretty well memorized, but it’d been a while since he’d had to work from scratch.

The dragon scales of his armor had done a decent job keeping him safe from… whatever it was that brought him here, but in doing its job it had come out worse for the wear, especially where Toothless had bit his shoulder. Not beyond saving, but he’d have to mess with it a bit to spread out the scales he had left as optimally as he could. Toothless must’ve been caught up in the same thing, and Hiccup didn’t doubt that his riggings would probably be pretty messed up.

He was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t notice his new companions until one of them lept at his hand, chasing the movement of the charcoal across the page. Horrendous pulled back from his drawing as the terrible terror batted at his charcoal. He looked over at the fish pile and saw six others eating it happily, occasionally fighting over the same fish before remembering that there were plenty more right next to them. Three of them were yellow, two reds, a teal, and the one on his lap was green.

Well.

Not the dragons he had been hoping for.

“Hey there.” Horrendous scratched the head of the dragon on his lap. He looked out to see if there was anything bigger coming, but the seven small dragons were the only ones in sight. He sighed and shook his head. Of course the terrible terrors would be the only ones to willingly approach. He could wait longer for something else, or try setting up traps or something, but he didn’t want to waste more time. “I’m not going to find anything here, am I?”

The terrible terror yipped and curled up on his lap. The other six saw this and started claiming different parts of him to perch on. 

“Okay, we’re gonna need a new plan.”

 

oOo

 

Hiccup knocked on his dad’s door. There was a moment of silence, then something that sounded almost like squealing that was cut off abruptly. He could hear Horrendous fumbling around and then the door opened a crack.

“Hiccup?” Horrendous said, still looking half asleep.

“Do you, uh, do you know anything about night furies?”

Horrendous gave a huge sigh and opened the door wider. Hiccup moved to head in, but Horrendous instead moved out and closed the door behind him, walking over to the fire. His shirt was off, wearing only his pants, and Hiccup’s eyes ran over the man’s torso. He was marred with scars. Burn scars that puckered the skin, huge sets of diagonal lines like he’d been mauled by a dragon, a particular bite scar over his stomach that made Hiccup put his hand over his own in sympathy. Horrendous had taken the bandage off of his shoulder, giving a clear view of the healing mark on his shoulder. Hiccup found himself mentally checking it up against the night fury’s - Toothless? It was as good a name as any - teeth. So he really had been attacked by a night fury.

“Yeah. I do.” 

Hiccup, despite his his own tiredness, perked up at that. 

“Really? Gobber said nobody’s seen one and lived to tell the tale - then again, you clearly survived your ship being wrecked. But maybe it was night or something and it attacked you from behi-”

“I saw it very clearly. That wasn’t my first time seeing a night fury.” Horrendous sat down in front of the fire, grabbin the metal rod next to the it and stoking the coals. “It was a night fury that bit my leg and made me lose my foot.”

“Oh.” Hiccup shuffled awkwardly. “Sorry to bring it up.”

“You didn’t know, it’s fine. But you’ve got to know, what you’re doing can have serious lasting consequences.” Hiccup froze. He’d only just interacted with Toothless today, only finished up on his tail late this night. “Your Dragon Training.” Horrendous clarified and Hiccup sagged in relief. Of course. He’d been careful. There was no way this guy knew he hadn’t killed Toothless - he probably didn’t even know about Hiccup’s claims to have shot one down!

“So… do you just know what they look like?” Hiccup asked, sitting down to the right of Horrendous. The man’s eyes remained on the coals that he continued to poke and prod.

“No, I know a bit more about them. Their teeth are retractable, and they’re capable of walking on two legs if they try. Their claws can flex to grip things better.” Horrendous flexed his own fingers, and Hiccup wondered what he was thinking about. “I can draw you a picture of one, if you wanted. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what one looks like.”

“That’s okay.” The claws thing was new, but the rest of it he’d already known and he’d drawn a picture himself. Apparently not even Horrendous would be able to help him out. He looked at the man, trying to place the things they had in common that may point towards his mom. “Hey, Horrendous, why were you looking for my mom?”

“... since my parents, uh, died, I’ve been pretty lonely. I’ve known people who can call the sea home, but, without my family there, it just isn’t. So I guess I was looking for family again?” Horrendous shrugged. “I’ve never met her. She’d be… thirty-five? I think? And I’m only twenty-one. Even if we had met before, I probably wouldn’t remember.”

“Oh.” Hiccup said again. He hadn’t known he’d wanted to ask until he no longer could.

Breaking the odd atmosphere between them was the sound of something falling in Stoick’s room. Horrendous shot to his feet, eyes sharp and glued on the door to Stoick’s room  before covering it up with a big yawn that seemed way too fake.

“If that’s all, I should be getting back to bed. Lots of, uh, weapons to sharpen tomorrow. You should too. Dragon Training isn’t going to go easy on you.” Horrendous was back in his room, door shut, before Hiccup could say anything. 

The guy had a point though. It was already really late, and he still had Dragon Training in the morning, not to mention the stress of strapping a tailfin on a dragon. Best to get as much sleep as he could manage.

 

oOo

 

The night fury was an enigma to Valka.

After the dragons had eaten their fill of the fish, Valka had managed to easily convince the night fury to leave the cave. With his tailfin damaged and unable to fly, Cloudjumper had had to pick him up with his as carefully as he could with his hind legs, like he was an overgrown sheep. 

Despite how friendly he had been when they’d first met, he seemed to get more cautious of her as time went on. He kept sniffing through her stuff and walking around like he was looking for something but not finding anything. 

She had taken off the riggings and saddle, eyeing it all curiously. As far as she was aware, she didn’t know anybody else who actively rode dragons. Not even Drago. There was also the fact that he was missing the tailfin. On one hand it was a  _ night fury, _ a rare and dangerous breed, which would make someone want to keep it. Yet on the other hand, he couldn’t fly and that would make his worth much lower in the eyes of men. 

He got along perfectly well with Cloudjumper, and they would talk to each other often and for long periods of time. Even with how long she’d spent with dragons, she was unable to tell what exactly they were saying but oh, what stories the fury must have to tell. It sure sounded amazing, and Cloudjumper often made surprised and imploring sounds in response to what the night fury said. 

Oddly enough, while the night fury seemed very respectful of the alpha, he’d never bowed to him. If anything, it almost seemed like the much smaller dragon thought of himself as an equal of the alpha. Even odder was the fact that the bewilderbeast didn’t seem bothered by this.

When it was feeding time, he climbed on the back of any dragon who would let him - though it was usually Cloudjumper. A couple of times he’d try to jump and glide off into the distance, but he couldn’t get very far and Cloudjumper had to go and and pick him up. He’d huff angrily and growl something up at the stormcutter.

About five days after she’d brought him in, it all seemed to come to a head.

He roared and jumped around, clearly tired of being cooped up. Most of the dragons that could no longer fly due to injury usually had similar fits, not used to being grounded and getting restless, despite how nice it was in the Sanctuary, but the night fury seemed almost insane as he ran around, jumping up the sides and raking his claws down the ice as if he was trying to climb out of there. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Valka murmured, trying to get close enough to pet him. He just roared again, teeth bared and feet stomping. He even let out a shot at one point, firing at a block of ice. Valka sighed. It was safer here for the night fury, but she could see how even a place like this could start to seem like just a huge cage. When she’d first been brought here by Cloudjumper, she’d certainly felt the same anxiousness that the night fury must be feeling.

Cloudjumper, as usual, seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, landing and allowing Valka to climb on his back before picking up the night fury and flying back out of the Sanctuary. The dragon stopped his fussing once he was in Cloudjumper’s grasp and even seemed to croon out a thank you. 

They landed on a sheet of ice not too far from home. The night fury looked around for a moment, and she expected him to go running off and playing in the snow or something. Instead he just sat down, head tilted to the side, and looking incredibly and sad and lost. 

“I don’t know what you want from me.” Valka sighed. He allowed her to get close enough to pet him this time. “You’re safer in the Sanctuary. Nobody would even hesitate to kill you in a state like yours.” 

He whined again and it broke her heart that she couldn’t help him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horrendous, kind of the terrible terrors!   
> If anybody's curious, I did name them. The three yellow ones are Crackle, Blossom, and Spine. The two red ones are Umber and Aorta. The teal one is Stormy and the Green one is Pine.  
> Also! it could be a few days before the next update! i've got a lot of homework to accomplish in a short amount of time.


	5. Chapter 5

If Horrendous thought he’d woken up early the day before, he woke up much earlier the next morning. There were a few reasons for that. For one thing, at some point during the night it had started to rain, and Horrendous’s stump was once again in pain. There was also the matter of the small thunder of dragons that he was currently sharing the room with. Fortunately, they didn’t try to warm up a spot to sleep like Toothless did, seeming to find Horrendous a warm enough source of heat. Unfortunately, one of them woke up for one reason or another, which caused the rest of them to wake up, and it wasn’t long before they were all doing everything in their power shy of burning him to death to get him to wake up and get more fish for them.

“Morning to you too.” Horrendous huffed as one of terrible terrors nibbled on his prosthetic, pulling himself out of bed and putting on the clothes he had bought yesterday. He’d spent most of the evening altering them to fit him and then sketching up his project for today. Then, just as Horrendous and the terrors had started nodding off, Hiccup had wanted to talk, and it all came together in him not getting much sleep. 

It took a moment, but eventually he was able to convince six of the terrible terrors to stay behind, taking only Aorta with him and running through the early morning rain. It would probably clear up, but at least it meant that nobody was out and about. He left the small dragon in the forge, instructing her to start heating up the furnace and hoping she understood him while he ran to the Great Hall and got some fish. There was then another trip back to the house, throwing some fish into his dad’s room, and then returning back to the forge.

Aorta was standing proudly before a bed of hot coals and he praised her, tossing her some fish before spreading out his design. If dragons weren’t going to come to him, then he’d just have to go to the dragons.

Still, looking at the design before him, even he had to admit it looked both ridiculous and crazy. 

“This’ll work.” He said to himself. Aorta landed on his shoulder, looking down at the parchment curiously and he turned to her. “This  _ will  _ work!”

Aorta got bored of watching him work rather quickly and had settled back near the forge, somehow managing to nap as he beat the Hel out of the metal. Gobber came in at one point, but Aorta had the sense to hide while the viking grabbed some things. Horrendous pretended to be busy sharpening weapons, praying that Gobber didn’t notice the extremely hot furnace, nor the designs lying clear as day on the table. He didn’t. 

“Aorta, come here.” Hiccup called, and the dragon slithered over, inspecting the leather in his hand. He carefully positioned it over her, checking the straps a few times. She squirmed around a bit, but it didn’t seem to be uncomfortable for her to wear and Hiccup nodded to himself. He’d love to keep working on it - there were still six more to go - but he sadly put his designs in a stack, the least revealing of their true purpose on top, and took the harness off of Aorta, shoving it all off to the side. Eventually Hiccup or Gobber would notice if the pile of weapons didn’t start to go down in number.

It was while he was working on sharpening a sword, long and heavy, that Hiccup bustled. Aorta had been chasing the sparks coming off the whetstone, but quickly retreated into the helmet of Horrendous’s armor, the dragonhide parts still here from his first day awake. 

“Dragon Training over already?” Horrendous asked as Hiccup walked over to his corner of the workshop. 

“No, it hasn’t begun yet. Just, uh, wanted to look over something.” Hiccup said, the kid doing his best to surreptitiously look at the tailfin he must’ve put together last night. It certainly explained why he’d taken so long to come home. Horrendous smiled. He could still remember checking over everything several times before he put the first tail on Toothless, nervous and excited all at once. And now here he was, six years older and still working on things with dragons. 

Aorta poked out from the helmet, original fear of Hiccup giving way to curiosity, and Horrendous made a hissing noise that she heeded, retreating back into the helmet.  

“How’s the Dragon Training going anyway?” 

Hiccup shrugged, shoving his stuff back and out of the way. 

“Oh, you know. Life threatening, almost getting killed, it’s amazing.” Hiccup rolled his eyes and Horrendous chuckled. He looked over at his project. He could put it off for a little bit, couldn’t he? 

“I think I’ll watch today.” 

Hiccup looked up, clearly surprised.

“I- wha- why?!” Horrendous shrugged. 

“Why not? It’ll be… fun, watching you kids go up against dragons. It’ll remind me of when I was a boy, doing Dragon Training, nearly getting burnt to a crisp by a hideous zippleback.” Horrendous said wistfully as they made their way out of the forge.

“Wait… I thought you said your parents were travelers? And that you didn’t live in one place?”

It was all Horrendous could do not to freeze right there. Right. He had said that, hadn’t he? It had seemed like a smart thing at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure. 

“I… did.” Horrendous ground out, trying to go over everything he had claimed about himself since he’d gotten here. Frick, he’d even claimed to have been a blacksmith’s apprentice! And he clearly had been too. Nobody walked into a forge and just naturally had that kind of expertise. 

There was a bark from behind them and both Haddocks turned around.

Aorta was flying out of the forge, carrying Horrendous’s helmet with her.

“Dragon!” Horrendous yelled, though not loud enough to alert the other vikings and hoping he didn’t sound as excited as he was for the distraction. “Hiccup, you go, I’ll take care of the beast!”

“W-wait!” Hiccup put his hand on Horrendous’s shoulder, but he easily pulled out of his weak grip and ran over to the terrible terror. He plucked his dragon blade from his waistband and threw it as far as he could. Aorta perked up and chased after it, dropping the helmet. Horrendous spared a look behind him and threw Hiccup a thumbs up. 

Horrendous picked up his helmet and went between throwing his helmet and throwing his dragon blade until they were far enough away from Hiccup and the town. 

“Okay, c’mon, give it up.” Horrendous put out his hand and after a moment Aorta put the helmet in his hand, tongue darting out and licking his nose. “Let’s get you home before you get into any more trouble.”

The rest of the terrors were excited to see both of them again, quickly finding their perches on him and crying out when he brushed them back off. He clipped the dragon blade back to his belt but tossed the helmet on the bed. The thunder pounced on the new object and Horrenous made his escape.

The training grounds looked so much more bleak here in the past, and the metal ropes over it made Horrendous’s heart pound a little uncomfortably. It wasn’t exactly easy, being reminded that his tribe had once done the things that they now fought so vehemently against. Gobber was in the stands while the teens ran through the maze he had constructed. Meatlug was barreling around, knocking into walls as she wound around the maze. To them it probably looked like she was hunting them, but Horrendous could tell Meatlug was more just curious about what was behind every corner.

“Find her blind spot!” Gobber called down as the Hiccup ran away from the Gronkle, running into Fishlegs. Horrendous huckled as Ruffnut and Tuffnut tried to use the same blind spot of the deadly nadder - which just put them right in Meatlug’s line of fire. 

“Have you lost any kids yet?” Horrendous walked up to Gobber and leaned on the railing as the twins ran into the maze screaming with Meatlug in pursuit.

“Not with me on watch.” Gobber said. “What brings you out here, Horrendous? Not enough to keep you busy at the forge?”

“More than enough to keep me busy for my life,” Horrendous said, thinking of the three different projects he meant to work on on top of actually doing his job. “But I wanted to see how they were holding up against the dragons.”

“I helped dress your wounds when you first showed up, looks like you’ve had your fair share of run-ins with the beasts.” Gobber nodded to Horrendous’s shoulder. “Gotta say, I’m impressed you survived some of those.”

“Yeah, I’ve handled a lot of dragons in my time, species you’ve probably never even heard of before. Comes with being a traveler.” Gobber seemed to buy that. 

“Who can tell me how many shot’s she’s used up?” Gobber shouted down to the teens.

“Three!” Fishlegs immediately responded loudly and attracted Meatlug’s attention in doing so. He then screamed and started running, the gronckle giving chase, both of them knocking into the walls. 

It all went to shit pretty fast after that. 

The wall that was falling near Astrid and Snotlout probably wouldn’t have hit them, but Snotlout tackled Astrid in some kind of failed attempt to save her, and then got them both stuck under the wall. The twins both run into each other while running through the maze, trying not to get hit by the collapsing walls, and were now both holding their heads in their hands. Fishlegs had rounded a corner without looking and had accidently run into the stone side of the academy.

Thus, Hiccup was the last one standing and the one that Meatlug now had her eyes on.

Hiccup seemed frozen, looking around desperately for something to help him, and a chill went down Horrendous’s spine.

_ He didn’t remember this happening. _

“Throw your axe Hiccup!” Gobber shouted, and Horrendous could hear the hint of fear in his voice. He looked over and he could see very clearly that Hiccup had no intention to throw the axe. Not only did the kid not have the arm strength to do so, but he’d also already made a connection with Toothless. Dragons were no longer mindless creatures to him anymore. 

With hardly a second though, Horrendous slipped over the metal ropes and hit the ground running. He almost called the gronckle by name but instead just grit his teeth and jumped on top of the dragon. Her mouth had been open, preparing to shoot a blast at Hiccup, but she closed it in surprise. She bucked wildly beneath him and Horrendous held on tight, feeling her rough hide scratching up his arms. 

He shifted his weight and sent them both barreling towards her cage. He reached his hand to the spot behind her jaw and scratched it before letting go of the dragon and jumping off. She had stopped flapping in response to the scratch but the momentum carried her into her cage. Horrendous jumped back to his feet, pushed the doors closed, and threw the lever to set the log back over the door, successfully locking Meatlug in. 

“Sorry.” He whispered, wincing as he heard something bang on the door.

It was then that he noticed that all eyes were on him. 

“That. Was. AWESOME!” Tuffnut pumped his fists into the air. Ruffnut had her hands over her heart.

“Take notes. That’s how you take care of a dragon.” Gobber praised from the stands.

“I was totally going to do that, I was just busy making sure you were safe babe.” Snotlout said to Astrid, who just shoved him away. She had an odd expression on her face, the one that said ‘I’m impressed but I still don’t trust you’. It was a bit weird to see in on a much younger face, but also somewhat reassuring to know that even six years in the past, his Astrid was still there. 

He caught Hiccup’s eyes and was shocked to see even more distrust than Astrid had. Right. They had never resolved that whole thing from earlier. Despite this, Hiccup saw everybody starting to crowd around Horrendous and clearly saw it as the perfect opportunity to get back to Toothless with the tailfin.

“So, Horrendous, how many dragons have you killed?” 

Horrendous hadn’t noticed Ruffnut getting so close, but now she was holding his arm and looking up at him with dreamy eyes.

“Uh, I’ve got, uh, things to sharpen.” Horrendous pushed Ruffnut off of him. “Maybe we can talk during dinner?”

He didn’t wait for a reply and booked it out of there. He could feel all of them watching him as he went and he wondered just how long he’d be able to keep this whole thing up. 


	6. Chapter 6

Horrendous managed to find enough time alone after the Dragon Training incident to finish up his project. He left the terrible terrors in Stoick’s room, already having the measurements he needed from them and not wanting an incident like last time.He managed to avoid any distractions. Gobber was too busy seeing to some problems of the citizens to stop by, and Hiccup was busy with his first attempt at getting Toothless off the ground. 

He’d get to training the terrible terrors with it tonight, praying that it wouldn’t take too long for them to get the hang of it and that he could get off of Berk and find a better dragon for traveling long distances. But it would have to wait. He had promised the teens he’d talk to them about his amazing ‘dragon killing’ skills.

Which is how Horrendous found himself the center of attention during dinner. Even Hiccup was there, apparently just as curious as everybody else to hear what about Horrendous’s supposed adventures. 

“So, how many dragons have you killed?” 

Astrid was the first to ask a question. Well, okay, that was a lie, but Horrendous didn’t count the ‘are you married’ and ‘can I feel your muscles’ from Ruffnut.

“Oh, well, I’ve lost count?” Horrendous scratched the back of his head, avoiding their eyes. “You know, being on the sea and travelling, it’s not a status thing, it’s, uh, a survival thing.” He shrugged. He looked back at the kids. Most of them seemed to buy it, even Astrid gave a nod like it made sense. Hiccup still looked suspicious though. 

“You said you took Dragon Training.” Hiccup said, looking incredibly confident in himself considering where the kid was in his time of life. “But you keep saying you’re a traveler.”

“My parents were afraid of having me on the sea when I was young. They left me in a village, and I became the apprentice of the blacksmith there as well as taking dragon training.” Horrendous answered easily, proud of himself for having thought about how to combat this question when it inevitably came up again. Hiccup didn’t look convinced, but didn’t say anything about it. 

“How did you do that with the gronckle, where you just made it totally stop flying?” Tuffnut asked, bobbing excitedly in his seat. “Did you snap its wings while we weren’t looking?”

“No. That was, um…” Horrendous’s eyes darted over to Hiccup. He probably hadn’t learned about this yet, but Horrendous could think of no clear and easy lie to tell. “It’s like a pressure point that, kind of paralyzes? The dragon?”

“Why didn’t you just kill the dragon if you’re such a skilled guy?” Snotlout sniffed, clearly trying to look like he didn’t also find Horrendous to be really cool. 

“Do you guys want to go through the trouble of catching another gronckle?” Horrendous,  asked. “I was just trying to make sure Hiccup didn’t get killed.”

“Pfft, like anybody would’ve cared.” Snotlout snorted and Horrendous clenched his hands into fists. Hiccup didn’t look terribly bothered by the statement, all too used to such things being said about him. But for Horrendous, it been a while since his cousin had said those kinds of things to him and they kindled a bit of anger he had hardly known he’d fostered over the years.

“He’s my nephew, so I would’ve cared.” Horrendous said perhaps a bit too sharply and enjoyed the looks of surprise that crossed all of their faces. Tuffnut even did a spit take. 

“Wait, you’re saying  _ this,”  _ Ruffnut pointed at Horrendous, “Is related to  _ that?!” _

“You do look kind of like Stoick, like your eyes and your nose.” Fishlegs observed.

“I’m actually Hiccup’s mom’s cousin absolutely no relation to Stoick whatsoever.” Horrendous said a little too quickly. 

“I thought you looked like Valka.”

Horrendous jumped, not having heard Gobber walk up. 

“Yep, that’s why I look like her, same grandparents.” Horrendous nodded, so glad that this seemed to be working. 

“Horrendous, if you’ve killed a lot of dragons, have you seen a boneknapper before?” Fishlegs looked excited to have finally found a point in the conversation to ask his questions, and Horrendous was more than happy to talk about one of his favorite topics.

“Yeah, I have actually. They look like they’re made out of dragon bones. Gave me a Hel of a time trying to kill it.” Horrendous said and winced at the high pitched squeal of delight from Fishlegs. 

“What about a night fury?”

“Nobody’s seen a night fury before.” Gobber automatically said, taking a gulp of meade form his tankard. 

“I have. I saw the one that bit my shoulder, and it was a night fury that took my leg.” Horrendous nodded down to his leg. Gobber gave an impressed nod

“He must’ve gotten a taste for ya and spread the news around. I have the same problem with monstrous nightmares.” Gobber tapped his tankard hand.

“What did it look like? How big are they actually? Did you find out how many shots it can fire at a time? What about how tough it’s scales are?” Fishlegs cut back into the conversation. 

“Uh, they’re about… nadder size I guess? But more monstrous nightmare in shape, completely black with an extra set of limbs for their wings like a gronckle or zippleback.” Horrendous attempted to describe.

“Oh, they sound so cool!” Fishlegs looked like he was about to explode from glee. “What other dragons have you seen? What were they like? How did you kill them?”

Horrendous sighed. 

Eventually, he managed to slip away form the Great Hall. Most of the teens had steadily left as it became more and more obvious that the conversation wasn’t going to change from talking about dragon statistics and features. He had to slowly edge away from Fishlegs and was only able to get away when he agreed to draw up pictures of some of the dragon he’d seen during his travels.

Hiccup was busy in the forge, working on designing and creating the saddle and rigging  to go with the tailfin, and the Haddock house was set out at the edge of the village. Even with both of those things working in his favor, Horrendous was sure that slipping the terrors out of the house and into the woods put a few gray hairs on his head. They were all very clearly sick of being stuck in the house all day, and though they hadn’t burnt it down they had been fighting for who claimed possession of the helmet. 

They were all so excited to be back out in the woods. Almost as excited as they were over the fish he brought them. Aorta seemed to have claimed the role of head of the thunder, though one of the yellow terrible terrors, Spine, seemed to keep trying to fight her for that title. 

Horrendous fit them all with the harnesses and only Blossom and Stormy were bothered by them. Horrendous did his best to reassure them that the leather wasn’t some random creature grabbing onto them and please Blossom no, stop trying to tear through the leather, stop it. He let them fly around in them for a while before strapping them to the seat-saddle thing. Terrible terrors naturally flew in a group, but they tugged away form each other at first and were obviously a bit confused about the extra weight they had to carry, especially when Horrendous sat down on it. Despite that, just as he had hoped, they were indeed strong enough to carry the weight. 

Getting them to follow directions was another thing. 

Most of the time, steering dragons was intuitive, both for the dragon and the rider. You lean or pull one way or the other and that was the way the dragon went. There wasn’t the same kind of bond when you weren’t even touching the dragon. So instead, the terrible terrors went whatever direction Aorta went. 

Horrendous took them out of the harnesses. That was fine. He’d trained plenty of terrors before.

 

oOo

 

The cold night air was a relief after the heat of working in the forge, and Hiccup wiped his brow as he left. If he stopped by in the morning, he might be able to finish up the saddle. It was exciting, thinking about what could happen tomorrow. He’d gotten the smallest taste of flying with Toothless today, when the dragon unexpectedly took off while Hiccup put on the the tailfin. While he was most definitely doing this with the main goal being to get the dragon he’d injured back into the air, he couldn’t deny that he was excited at the prospect of being up there with him.

And scared.

But when wasn’t he scared?

The house was quiet as he entered, and Hiccup looked at the door to his dad’s room. He bit his lip, wondering if he should directly confront the man. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about the man, even after Horrendous had saved him from the gronckle. 

His heart sank into his stomach, and Hiccup squirmed as he felt sick. Even his first cousin once removed was a dragon killer. Probably his mom had  been too. Every viking didn’t hesitate when they came up against the monsters. All of them except for him. 

“Hey, Horrendous?” Hiccup gently pushed the door open. The traveler was nowhere to be seen.

There was a knock on the front door and Hiccup whipped around. He approached the door slowly. The energy of the night was weird and he was hoping to Hel it wasn’t about to get worse.

“Astrid?” Hiccup stepped back in surprise. Astrid brushed right past him and into the house.

“Is Horrendous here?” Oh, that made a lot more sense.

“No, I don’t know where he is.” Horrendous sighed.

“Okay good.” Astrid folded her arms. “We need to talk.”

“W-we?” Hiccup pointed to himself. Astrid huffed and rolled her eyes.

“Yes. You.” Astrid leaned up against the wall. “You’re the only other one who’s noticed that there’s something wrong with Horrendous. He even seems to have Gobber fooled.”

“Wait, you mean, you-?” 

“Yeah, Hiccup, you’re not the only one who seems to know that he’s clearly putting together his stories on the spot. Clearly he’s skilled, but he’s also lying about his past. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. He’s got Snotlout and Tuffnut impressed, Fishlegs excited about dragons, and Ruffnut seems to fancy herself the future… he’s never mentioned a last name. Well, there’s another think added to the list of sketchy things about him.” Astrid rattled off. “But you, against all odds, have caught on to him. Which makes you an ally.”

“A-an ally?” Hiccup stuttered out. Was this even real.

“You both sleep at the same place and work at the same place. As much as I hate to admit it, but you’re our best bet at figuring out what this this man wants out of us.” Astrid pushed off of the wall and walked over to him. Her eyes, shards of ice from the middle of winter, strong and sharp, bore into him. She stuck her hand out. “Do we have an alliance here? Are we going to protect our village?”

“Uh, y-yeah, yes, absolutely, of course.” Hiccup floundered about for words as he shook her hand.

It was strong and roughly calloused, and Hiccup hoped the dim light of the fire made it hard to see him. He could feel the heat rushing to his face as he realized that he was shaking hands with Astrid Hofferson.

Without another word, she left.

Yep. A weird night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm trying to figure out which dragon to give Horrendous. I'm having a hard time deciding between a crimson goregutter and the hobblegrunt. Any opinions?


	7. Chapter 7

It took a couple of days to get the terrible terrors trained, but it was nice how familiar it was. Training dragons was the same, whether it was the past or the future. When Horrendous was in the woods, teaching the dragons commands and watching as they steadily learned them, he could forget for just a few moments that this wasn’t technically his home. 

The previous night, Horrendous had told Gobber over dinner that he had plans on exploring more of Berk and probably wouldn’t be around much during the day. Gobber seemed fine with it, just warning him to take an axe with him into the woods and kill any dragon he may see. 

The next morning, he put his (still damaged) armor on and a long and flowing cloak he’d sewn from some fabric he’d bought and wrangled the terrible terrors underneath it. He’d tried to convince them to stay in the woods the night he’d first started training them, but they’d followed him back to the Haddock house and had almost gotten seen by Astrid - who had apparently stopped by? 

Horrendous had brushed it off, having more things to worry about. It was probably just one of the small changes that had happened from his being here, like the thing with the gronckle.

The morning grass was dewy as Horrendous walked across it. When he got through the treeline, he lifted up his cloak and let the terrors out. They squeaked and barked in excitement. Aorta perched on his head while Spine and Pine claimed his shoulders. Umber, Blossom, Crackle, and Stormy flew around him as if trapped in his orbit. He let them stay like that for a while as he walked through the woods, carrying the terror rigging. 

He passed by the cove where Toothless was, and Horrendous glanced own. Toothless was still curled up on a scorched patch, sleeping. It wasn’t his best friend down there though. Horrendous felt like there was an open wound in his chest as he thought about the night fury. It was different than with the others. He knew that all of his friends were probably worried about him (if time moved? While he was in the past?) but at least he knew where they were. They’d be on Berk, or maybe looking for them. 

Horrendous still had no idea where Toothless was. But at least he was making a step towards finding his dragon.

The terror rigging looked a bit crazy. It was like a saddle with strings coming off of the back and the front that were hooked to terrible terrors - three in back, four in front. He would’ve liked to make it a bit more stable, but as it was he only dared take some rations and some rope with him, not wanting to weigh down the terrors too much.

“Let’s go!” Horrendous pointed forward and the with a bark from Aorta, the thunder flew off to the sea.

 

oOo

 

“Well. This could’ve gone better.” 

Pine gave an agreeing squawk.

They had been flying for hours. They were going in vaguely the direction of the Dragon’s Edge, even though there was no way they’d be able to make the journey is just a single day and Horrendous didn’t want to get too far from Berk. He had an excuse for being gone today, but being gone for two days in a row would surely start making people wonder where he was. Him and his terrors were making decent time, but he’d been having trouble finding dragons. There had been a few spotty islands they’d stopped by, but there hadn’t been anything there. It was a bit frustrating, but Horrendous just kept going forward. You had to be patient with dragons.

Then they got shot out of the sky by a net.

The landing had been a bit harsh, and Horrendous knew he was going to feel it in the morning. In fact, he was feeling it in his left arm right now. They’d flown over a few ships during the day, and while there had been some shouting and pointing, nothing had happened until now. His own dismissal of it had brought this upon himself. Dragon trappers.

“I can work with this.” Horrendous murmured. The men on deck were edging towards him, obviously confused about exactly what they were looking at. He snapped his fingers, catching the attention of his dragons and stopping their squawking and panicking. They scuttled over to him as best they could with the net and his started fiddling with the latches connecting them to the saddle as fast as he could.

“What... Is that… a person?” One of them said.

“Dear Odin, are those terrible terrors? What are supposed to do with those?” Another complained. They were leaning over him by now, clearly unsure what to make of him. Horrendous looked around, doing his best to get a grip on his surroundings.

He grabbed his dragon blade from where it was snapped onto his leg and clicked the bottom, letting the hideous zippleback gas pour out. He was trapped close to the ground, close to the gas, and Horrendous now regretted leaving his helmet back on Berk. He buried his face as best he could in his arm, sucking in air sharply through his teeth at the pain of moving his arm, and drew out the flaming blade of the weapon, lighting the gas on fire, scorching his cloak and surprising the men, causing them to jump back while he used the blade to cut through the ropes. 

Either the terrible terrors read the room or were just going to their natural state of causing mayhem, because as soon as they had the chance they started attacking the trappers. Horrendous didn’t look back as he ran to the open hatch to below the deck, not bothering with the ladder and just jumping down, wincing a bit from the fall. 

There was only one dragon. He was tied up well, front and back legs bound, rope tight around his mouth, and Horrendous slowly approached the hobblegrunt. The dragon’s frill spread and it eyed him cautiously, obviously unsure what to make of him as his coloring mixed between purple and red in waves. Horrendous did his best to ignore the sound of mayhem above and put his hand out to the dragon.

“Hey there bud. Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you. I’ll help you. Do you think you can do the same for me?” There was more stomping above, and then a high pitched squeal that obviously came from one of the terrible terrors. Horrendous grit his teeth. They didn’t have time for this. “By Thor I hope you trust me!” 

Horrendous cut through the ropes on the hobblegrunt’s legs. The dragon ripped off the one around his mouth on his own and then, opening his jaw, to let out a stream of fire, burning a hole to the upper deck. Horrendous climbed onto his back just as the dragon jumped to the deck, growling deep in his throat, color resolving into a ferocious red. 

“Umber, Blossom, Pine, Crackle, fetch!” Horrendous shouted, pointing to the saddle. The terrible terrors let go of their prey - three screaming trappers they’d been biting - and followed the dragon trainer’s directions, grabbing it and flying into the air. Aorta and Stormy were both blasting the man who looked like the captain of the crew as he tried to swat them away while not getting burned and keeping a tight hold on Spine. 

The hobblegrunt saw this too and stomped over, head drawing back as it readied another blast. 

“Don’t!” Horrendous slid off the dragon’s back and pointed his dragon blade at the captain. For a moment it seemed like the dragon wasn’t going to listen to him, but at the last moment the hobblegrunt redirected his blast to just above the man. The trapper was looking from the hobblegrunt, to Horrendous, to the two terrors that had left him to land back on their normal perches on Horrendous, eyes wide with fear. “Drop the dragon.”

The captain did just that, hands up in a surrender position, and Spine fell like a rock - a rock that the hobblegrunt caught in his mouth, delicately holding him there, and then took off.

Horrendous thought that perhaps he would have to fly back to Berk with one less dragon instead of one more. 

Then the hobblegrunt flew in a circle and grabbed him with the dragon’s back two legs. Horrendous cried out at the tight grip on his injured arm and held on tight to his dragon blade. It would be a pain trying to make a new one. 

They stopped on the nearest island, which was little more than a pillar of stone rising out of the sea with a handful of trees on top of it. The hobblegrunt dropped him, and Horrendous tumbled across the sparse grass. He held his arm. Yeah, it was definitely broken. He started to get up, but found the violet mouth of the hobblegrunt in his face.

The dragon sniffed him, hot air blowing Horrendous’s hair out of his face. He scrunched up his nose in response. Spine was still in the hobblegrunt’s mouth, and the terrible terror chirped a greeting. The rest of the terrors landed around Horrendous. The dragon trainer lifted his good arm, hand outstretched to the hobblegrunt, and sighed in relief when the snout butted up against his palm and yellow spread out across the dragon’s scales. He ran his hand along the face of the dragon, scratching it a bit, and stood back up.

“Hey there. Nice to meet you too.” Horrendous smiled despite the pain. “Why don’t we head home, huh?”

It took a minute to convince the dragon to let Horrendous tie the ropes he’d brought onto him, but the hobblegrunt - which he decided to name Serrated - eventually relented, seeming to understand that Horrendous meant no harm. He hooked six of the terrible terrors back up to the terror rigging and took Spine out of Serrated mouths. One of the terror’s wings had gotten injured in the scuffle above deck, but it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t heal.

The hobblegrunt took to the air again, and this time Horrendous was able to bask in the feeling of being in the air, of being free, once again.

 

oOo

 

“And you haven’t seen him all day?”

“No, uh, I even, uh, checked a bit of the woods! Y’know, after Dragon Training? I, uh, didn’t seem him though.” Hiccup stuttered, glancing at her nervously as they walked along the shore, and Astrid rolled her eyes. 

The chief’s son had been keeping up with his promise to keep her uptodate with what was going on with Horrendous the past three days. The man seemed to spend most of his time in the forge and in the woods. His backstory of being a blacksmith’s apprentice checked out, with how well he seemed acquainted with the things in the forge.

It did nothing to explain why he kept going out into the woods after dinner, though. Hiccup claimed that he had a hard time following the man in the dark, and Astrid had attempted to do so too but never seemed to be able to catch the moment when he slipped out of the Haddock house. 

“Well that’s just great. I’ll bet he’s been consorting with another tribe, maybe telling them our secrets.” Astrid huffed.

“Maybe.” Hiccup said. Astrid eyed him. She wasn’t thrilled about having to work with him, but if she wanted to figure out what Horrendous was up to, the less people she confided in the better, and Hiccup already knew. Horrendous could notice if any of the others started suddenly acting weird. But for the past couple of days, it seemed like Hiccup was hiding something as well. 

People like him don’t just suddenly get good.

At least this alliance-agreement they had also allowed her to keep a closer eye on him, though she still hadn’t been able to figure what he was doing.

Something moved ahead of them, and Astrid was immediately on alert, drawing her axe and motioning for Hiccup to stay behind her.

The thing crawled its way out of the water, chest shaking as it coughed. 

“Who are you?” Astrid demanded. 

The thing - a man, definitely a man - turned his head to them. He raised an arm like he intended to say something, but the arm went down, suddenly boneless. They both approached and Hiccup poked the man’s arm. He didn’t move.

“... I’ll go get Gobber.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES!  
> It took me a while to decide for the hobblegrunt to be Hiccup's new friend. I was also thinking about having him find a crimson goregutter, since those things are super rad. I may see if there's a way I can get one in in the future.  
> Any guesses who the dude is?  
> I've got some really exciting things happening in the next few chapter :D


	8. Chapter 8

“Okay. Stay here.” Horrendous told Serrated, scratching the hobblegrunt’s face. He shifted between yellow and purple, looking around the cave curiously. Horrendous turned his attention to the terrible terrors. He’d convinced the dragons to get off of him and they’d started to situate themselves on Serrated, with Aorta sitting on the dragon’s head, Pine on his back, and the rest playing around in the little pools of water in the cave. “Same for all of you. I’ll be back later.”

He left the terror saddle in the cave, as well as their harnesses (which he took off of them) and the scorched up cloak. He did take Spine with him though, worried about the dragon’s health and wanting to keep extra watch and make sure that the dragon’s wing healed right. While he was excited to have a dragon that could go longer distances and elated he was able to save him from trappers, he was very aware that he may have to put off plans of going anywhere for a bit because of his own broken bones. 

The sun had set by the time they arrived, thankfully, and Horrendous carefully maneuvered the woods in the direction of the village, gingerly holding his arm. Any adrenaline that may’ve dampened the pain had faded during the fly back to Berk, but the initial pain had also lessened over the time. He’d wrapped it up in a scrap of fabric from the cloak dunked into water to cool his hot arm and hopefully help with the swelling. Once that went down, he’d then have to set the arm. 

Hopefully he wouldn’t have to do much fighting from here on out. He just needed to find Toothless and find a way home, hopefully without ruining too much of the past as he went. 

He stopped when he saw Gobber leaving the house. 

Horrendous set down Spine, giving him the commands ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ and praying that the terrible terror would listen before running over to catch the blacksmith

“Gobber! Is Hiccup okay?” Horrendous asked as he approached, trying to think of a reason Gobber would’ve been at the Haddock house. 

“Ah, Horrendous, it was getting so late I thought might’ve not been back today!” Gobber greeted, limping over to him. 

“Did I miss something? Did Hiccup get hurt?” Horrendous searched the man’s face for any hint of tragedy to have struck his younger self. 

“No no, Hiccup’s fine. You should’ve seen him today! The way he handled the deadly nadder was simply amazing! But you wouldn’t believe what he and Astrid found tonight.” Gobber started heading back to the house, and Horrendous followed behind. With Gobber’s back to him, Horrendous also turned around and gestured for Spine to get to the roof of the house. 

“What was it?” Finding something with Astrid?  _ Definitely  _ not something that had happened to him.

“They found another man! Washed up on the shore, half-drowned. They said he was awake when they first found him, but he’s unconscious now. And since you weren’t using your bed, we gave it to him. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Gobber explained. 

Another man? What if it was somebody he knew? What if it wasn’t? Horrendous was sure which one he was hoping for.

He followed Gobber into the house. In front of the fire hung clothes - very familiar clothes - as they slowly dripped water onto the floor. The door to Stoick’s room was still open and Horrendous was glad that the terrors weren’t here. Hiccup, Astrid, and Gothi were in the room, the two teens standing off to the side while Gothi looked the man over to make sure he was okay.

“Is he okay?” Horrendous asked. Gothi didn’t respond right away as she lifted the man’s arm, taking in his scars. His shirt was off and it looked like he was wearing a pair of Stoick’s pants while his own were in the main room with the rest of his clothes. If there was any doubt about who this man was before, the tattoo on his chin and the intricate scar on his chest banished it.

Gothi finally nodded at Horrendous and then hobbled outside. Gobber went after her and then came back a couple minutes later alone. In that time Horrendous got closer to man. He looked a bit bruised up, but then again so was Horrendous, and he wasn’t sporting a bite mark like Horrendous when he’d first washed up here. Astrid and Hiccup just watched him in a way that reminded Horrendous of untamed dragons, where they don’t dare take their eyes off of you.

“Gothi says he’ll be fine. Should be up and about in a day or two.” Gobber reported. “Well, I’ll be going now - unless Stoick decides to show back up and then we have three people sharing a room.” 

Gobber left, and the atmosphere of the room only got weirder.

Astrid was regarding him like he was about to attack. Hiccup didn’t seem to know which man to look like.

“Do you know him?” Astrid, as per usual, broke the silence. No matter the Astrid. She always hated beating around the bush. Horrendous did his best not to think of his Astrid, though. Not while this one was giving him such a hard and cold look.

“That, uh, yes. Yes I do. We’ve met a few times on our travels. He’s a dragon trapper. Eret, son of Eret, from a long line of Erets.” Horrendous rattled off.

“Great.” Astrid said with a voice that implied it was all anything but. She gave Hiccup a meaningful look that sent Horrendous reeling. That had clearly been the Hofferson look of ‘watch the bad guy incase he tries to do something’. And she was giving it about him and Eret. “I’ll see you tomorrow at training, Hiccup.”

Astrid left just the three of them there.

Hiccup looked like he was about to say something, but Horrendous held up a hand.

“I… sorry, Hiccup, we- I mean, I, I’ve had a long day and I’m really tired.”

Hiccup looked like he wanted to say something else but ended up just leaving.

Horrendous sat down on the bed. He could feel his heart too clearly in his chest.

“By the Gods, Eret, what have we gotten ourselves into?”

 

oOo

 

The swelling of Horrendous’s arm was significantly better the next day, and he stopped by Gothi’s to get it set and correctly bandaged. His bruises were way more sore, though, but that was the price he’d paid for saving dragons. Spine wasn’t too thrilled about having to spend the night outside, but Horrendous didn’t want to risk Hiccup coming in to check on or keep an eye on Eret or whatever and seeing the small dragon.

He did take Spine to the forge with him, though, and after getting his own arm bandaged went ahead and bandaged the terrible terror’s wing. He was obviously pretty upset about not being able to fly, but hopefully it would help keep him out of trouble. The projects of creating a new saddle and rigging for Toothless and fixing up his armor (a bit more damaged after being so roughly picked up by Serrated) were put off in favor of letting his arm rest a bit and just sharpening weapons.

Spine seemed in the mood to rest up too, spending most of the time sleeping in Horrendous’s helmet. 

Horrendous did, however, find a bit of time to make a makeshift backpack to covertly carry Spine around in. 

He stopped by the Dragon Training for a bit. A couple other viking from town were there too, though there wasn’t much to watch. The teens were up against the hideous zippleback again and the arena was steeped in the explosive gas. There was also a maze again, but it was hard to see. Mostly, it was just entertaining to hear the screaming. 

He also managed to slip into the woods and check on the dragons, as well as bringing the saddle for the hobblegrunt. It fit well, and though the dragon had a long neck, riding on his back would work out fine. The terrible terrors were excited to see Spine again. The hobblegrunt seemed to have taken in the smaller dragons, and though he grumbled about them a bit, any snapping he did was purely playful and never with any intended harm. 

Aorta was reluctant to let Horrendous leave again, claws digging in a bit from her perch on his head, but Horrendous pulled her off and convinced Serrated to keep an eye on her, making sure she didn’t try and follow him to the village. 

The teens were all over him during dinner again, loud and excited. It was hard to focus though, with Astrid still fixing him with a look that put him on edge. They all seemed curious about how he’d broken his arm, and Horrendous had said he’d been chasing a dragon through the woods and then fell down a ledge. 

It was… kind of true. In a way.

“Oh, Horrendous, Horrendous, you’d love this book I was reading!” Fishlegs said, despite the groans it elicited from the rest of them. “It has dragons, and-and such a cool plot! And a twist ending you would never believe.”

“Go ahead and tell me.” Horrendous gave the young viking a smile. 

“You know you don’t have to sit through this, right?” Tuffnut whispered loudly to Horrendous. “We all just blow him off usually.”

“No, it’s fine. Go ahead Fishlegs, tell me about this book.” 

“Okay, so,” Fishlegs started and the twins and Snotlout immediately left. Astrid rolled her eyes, and Hiccup didn’t look thrilled to be there but stayed for whatever reason, “There’s this viking named Occisor the Blood Thirsty and he’s the chieftain of a village, a really big village, but it gets completely wiped out by a dragon. Just totally decimated, burned down, nothing left. So Occisor almost kills himself over the grief of losing his tribe, but then decides to ask the Gods for help.”

“Does he have to, like, complete a bunch of tasks to resurrect his tribe?” Horrendous asked, actually a bit interested.

“No, because he doesn’t ask for that! I thought he’d want that too, but instead he asks the gods if he can go back in time and get the chance to kill the dragon before it destroyed his village. And they let him! They create this huge stone circle and he goes through it and they put this tattoo on his wrist and if it turns completely red he dies, but if he goes back through the circle he goes back to the present. So the story is just Occisor chasing after this dragon and watching the tattoo get more red and getting worried he won’t save his people, and then at one point he sees his wife but she’s not his wife and he’s nearly gone mad over hunting this dragon so she doesn’t recognize him and- oh, sorry. I shouldn’t spoil it.”

Horrendous shook his head, sharply, trying to keep his breathing even and not letting on how desperately he wanted to know what happened to this other time traveler, even in a story.

“No, keep going.” 

“I really sh-”

“Please.” Horrendous nearly begged. Hiccup and Astrid were giving him weird looks, but he didn’t care. “Fishlegs, please.”

“Well, Occisor manages to kill the dragon, and he almost doesn’t make it back to the stone in time. But he gets through, and he’s so excited, but he gets back to his village and it’s still destroyed! I thought that maybe he’d killed the wrong dragon, and he’s so upset that he kills himself. In death, he asks asks Odon what happened, if something else had destroyed it, and he’s told that by going back in time, he created a split in time, but that going back through the circle returned him to his timeline.” 

An alternate timeline.

A split in time.

Horrendous hadn’t even considered such a thing, his actions not mattering, not changing his future. 

“It, uh, it sounds interesting.” Horrendous thanked Fishlegs and got up, thoughts running through his head like a hurricane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In one of my first ideas, instead of Eret coming it was Fishlegs, and the future Fishlegs mentions the possibility of split timelines. I like this more though.  
> Not to mention, Fishlegs hasn't changed too much. People would totally notice, and I'm still holding out on the reveal for a bit later. Nobody has ever met Eret before, I have some fun plans with him, and now Horrendous has a familiar friend :D


	9. Chapter 9

The boat shook as something big rammed into it. Eret woke up to wood splintering around him. He reflexively closed his eyes and lifted his hands to protect his face.

“GET THE ROPES!”

“WHAT THE HEL IS IT?!”

“MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!”

Somebody was pulling at him and Eret let himself be dragged away as something in the room roared. The faint moonlight poored in through the hole in the deck of the ship, the hole that the dragon had broken in through like it was made of petals. 

Eret was a dragon trapper, in a long line of dragon trappers, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think of the beasts as amazing creatures, strong and powerful. And this one was no accpetion.

It was green and red, scales reflecting the moonlight. It was bulky, clearly made to take a beating and even more so to give one, with large plates of scales like armor. It roared again, showing off its sharp teeth, and approached him and the crewman who had pulled him away from the beast. 

The dragon growled, opening its mouth, filling it with gas and then firing a shot at the crewman. Eret ran to one side while the crewman ran to the other. The dragon stalked up to Eret, who backed up as much as he could against the wooden wall of the boat. It inhaled a great deep breath through its nose. One. Twice. Three times. Why weren’t any of his men attacking it? Too scared? Too tired? What if it’d already killed them.

The dragon gave another roar, the scent of dead fish strong on its breath, and then let out a huff of air through its nose as if upset.

And then, just as quickly as the monster had come, it turned around and left.

“... Odin, what was that?!”

 

oOo

 

“What if this  _ is  _ a case where what I do doesn’t matter? It’ll just… split, like Fishlegs’ books? I mean, then I could just do whatever. But what if it isn’t? What if I mess with something, and then when I get back home Astrid died, or we never killed the Red Death? What if Dragon won?” 

Horrendous paced back and forth on the ledge, tugging on his hair and trying to figure out what to make of this new concept.

Serrated barked, not being of any help. 

The terrible terrors ran around in the tall grass nearby, stalking each other. Every so often a yelp could be heard as one caught the other.

Horrendous had barely been able to sleep the night before, trying to decide what to make of his situation. Eret hadn’t woken up yet, but occasionally he’d mumble something, which Horrendous took to be a good sign. In the morning he’d gone to the forge and half-heartedly sharpened a blade or two before walking away to the dragons.

They weren’t the ones he usually leaned on, those who usually were there to comfort him, but in a way that was nice in and of itself. Considering that his Riders were 14/15 year olds that didn’t know who he really was, his dad also didn’t know who he was and was currently out at sea, his mom was probably still living at the Sanctuary, and his best friend was a dangerous dragon who would probably sooner burn him to a crisp than listen to him. 

Also Eret, but he still wasn’t awake. And another of him still catching dragons probably.

“I just… I don’t know what I should do. I guess I’ll keep this up until I can decide.” Horrendous sighed and then climbed onto Serrated’s back. “Maybe a quick flight will help me clear my mind.”

 

oOo

 

Eret woke up in a room he didn’t recognize.

His head hurt and he was sore, muscles complaining as he sat up, but he did so anyway. He as immediately on edge, looking around him for any threat. There’s none that are immediate, but he refuses to relax just yet.

He quickly reviews what was the last thing he could remember. 

After meeting with the Riders discussing issues facing Berk, Hiccup had gone out for a ride by himself to clear his mind. They had let him go, he had really looked like he needed it, but then a storm had rolled in and he hadn’t returned. The storm had hung around, leaving dragons mostly stuck on the ground, every cold and wet and dreary, and the whole village - particularly Valka and Astrid - had been going out of their mind with worry. Astrid had even flown out a time or two, but had come back without Hiccup.

Eret had convinced the her to stay back, insisting that now of all times the village needed her, and had flown out with Skullcrusher. 

The storm had seemed to get worse the farther from Berk he’d gotten. Skullcrusher had lost control and then… water, yes, water. He’d called for his dragon, but he got no response. He’d seen land and had desperately swam towards it.

And how here he was.

Eret was very aware that he was wearing barely any clothes. The pants he was wearing weren’t even his. 

One of the walls was filled with weapons, and Eret immediately took one. It was clearly well cared for and he felt much safer with the axe in his hand. He looked around the rest of the room. There was a monstrous nightmare skull above the bed as well as a deadly nadder to right of it. The wall opposite of the the weapons was home to a large map, x’s in red and black scattered across it. Eret looked at it, trying to figure out where on it he may be right now. Berk was an island pretty far from everything else. It would take awhile to get there from anywhere by boat.

He slowly made his way out of the room, edging the door open and looking around. There was nobody in the main room, thankfully, and he crept out cautiously. Sure this people had taken him in and given him a bed, but what if they recognized as someone who was now a part of the dragon riders? If the skulls were any indication, they didn’t have a high view of dragons.

Eret was relieved to find all of his clothes hanging by the fire and set down the axe to quickly get dressed. He ran his hand along the golden scales of his rest, closing his eyes and thinking about Skullcrusher. He had to believe that his dragon was still out there somewhere, probably tracking him down right now. Well, then it’d be his mission to be ready for when the dragon arrived, to defend him and then leave, finding their way back to Berk. 

The look on Astrid and Valka’s face when he returned without Hiccup wouldn’t be nice but… well, perhaps Hiccup just had the tact to stay somewhere safe during the storm. Yes, he couldn’t give in to doubt now. 

With his own weapons back in his possession, Eret put the axe back and braced himself for whatever would greet him on the other side of the door.

It was afternoon, bright and as cloudless as it got this far north. He took in the village around him. It looked rather small, a few vikings bustling around. One of them looked at him, smile and waved good naturedly, and he waved back. Okay, they didn’t seem so bad so far. He reminded himself that it wasn’t too long ago we was the best dragon tracker there was. 

There was something… very familiar, however, about the landscape that bothered him. In looked a lot… like Berk. Which was crazy. There weren’t any dragons, or half of the buildings that held them, and the giant carving of Stoick was nowhere to be seen. You can’t cover up something like that.

And yet… and yet. It was so similar. Maybe he was dreaming? But no, he felt too sore to be asleep. 

He kept a hand on his knife while he walked through the town, eying the familiar people he passed. They all gave him odds looks in return, but he made sure to walk with purpose and nobody tried to talk to him. He gave another look around, grimacing at how wrong this place looked. He could see the Great Hall, at the top of the town where it had always been, and looking out at the sea he could see the stone carvings of vikings. This certainly seemed to be Berk.

Eret hadn’t even realized where he was going until he found himself standing outside of the forge. Hiccup could usually be found in here, so he tended to go here after missions or when he needed to report things. It was where he always regrouped - and apparently the habit persisted even in this not-quite Berk. 

It was so much smaller than the one that he knew should be here. Like everything else here, it was painfully obvious that it wasn’t made for dragons - which was just so wrong! How could this be Berk if there were no dragons? 

Eret edged his way inside. There was somebody inside, young and very short - especially compared to the vikings. He was looking at something on the table that Eret recognized with a start. Hiccup’s armor, the one made out of Toothless’s scales, was sitting on the table. It had clearly seen better days, but it was here, which meant that surely,  _ surely  _ Hiccup was here somewhere too. 

The kid in front of the armor was holding a scale in his hand, looking from it to the armor and back again. 

“Excuse me?” Eret said, making his presence known and stepping farther into the forge. The kid jumped and spun around, putting the scale behind him and having the most guilty and nervous look on his face that Eret had ever seen. 

“O-oh! Hi!” The kid said, and now it was Eret’s turn to be surprised, recoiling away at the voice that didn’t match the face. He rubbed his head, a headache he’d had since he’d stepped outside getting worse. “You’re awake. Well, obviously you’re awake, I mean you’re here, unless you’re sleepwalking right now-”

“I’m not sleeping walking.” Eret cut him off. “That armor there belongs to a good friend of mine. Do you know where he is?” 

“So you do know Horrendous.” The kid muttered more to himself than to Eret. “So your name is Eret then, right?”

“Yes.” Eret responded hesitantly. Horrendous. He knew that Hiccup’s full name was Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, but it was weird for him to be going by his middle name. And the kid’s voice… Some things were coming together, as illogically as it seemed, in Eret’s mind, and none of it was looking good. “Where is… Horrendous?”

“Usually he’s here or in the woods. I don’t know what he could be doing out there though, or when he’ll be back.” The kid looked a bit frustrated at the information, and Eret noted that. 

“But you must be hungry, right? You were out for a day.” A solid day. That was more time than Eret would’ve liked, but better than several more. 

“Yes, I am. Do you know where I can get some food?” Eret asked even though he knew exactly where he could get some food. 

“Yeah, c’mon, I’ll show you to the Great Hall.” The kid kept the scale in the palm on his hand, where he clearly thought it was out of sight, and went back out of the forge. 

“What did you say your name was?” Eret looked the kid over, the scrawny thing he was, with that voice, thinking about what all the other Riders said Hiccup used to be like when they were younger, and dreaded the answer he knew was coming that would confirm just how far from Berk - the Berk he knew and called home - he was.

“Oh, right. I’m Hiccup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! it was a tough chapter to write, and i changed a couple things while i was writing them :P  
> hope you enjoy though!


	10. Chapter 10

Hiccup rolled his eyes as he watched Eret desperately try and pry Ruffnut off of his bicep. Every since Hiccup had introduced himself, the man had had an odd look on his face. It was somewhere between careful composure and complete and an animal backed up into a corner. Every word and smile was like bared teeth that sent shivers down Hiccup’s spine as warning bells went off in his head.

Unlike Horrendous, this man more easily talked about his past, weaving stories of capturing dragons, shooting them out of the sky and wrestling them into submission, of the ones he’d managed to kill and pointing at scars he’d earned. Once again, his fellow young vikings were absolutely amazed by each detail, with Tuffnut asking questions about the man’s technique and Fishlegs begging for more details on what the dragons looked like and how touch their hide was. 

Sitting on the other side of the table, Hiccup caught Astrid also rolling her eyes, giving a huffing of frustration. They met eyes, and Hiccup nodded with his head towards the door, trying to convey with facial expression that he wanted to talk to her.

“Oof, I’m beat. Well, I’ll see you guys tomorrow to practice strangling dragons.” Hiccup said as he stood up. Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut actually smiled at him as he left, such a weird thing that made an emotion Hiccup wasn’t entirely able to define bubble up in his stomach. Eret looked at him with those calculating eyes, almost like he could see right through every word Hiccup said. He did his best not to run straight out of the Great Hall.

A couple minutes later Astrid followed him.

“Did you find something else?” She asked, voice not entirely cold and surprising Hiccup. It took him a moment to remember what he wanted to say.

“I think I found some proof that Horrendous is lying about stuff.” Hiccup said, and Astrid’s face morphed into curiosity. The first time she’d ever directed an emotion that didn’t have frustration and a bit of hate at Hiccup. 

“Really? Well, what is it?” She prompted, then held up a hand before he could get started, staring at something over his shoulder he turned around and followed her gaze.

Horrendous was walking towards the Great Hall. A pack was slung over his back and his hair was a terrible whirlwind of tangles. He looked happier than any other time Hiccup had seen him, eyes essentially lit up and grinning widely. His arm was still in it’s cast, and he didn’t seem to have any more injuries since the last time Horrendous had seen him. 

“Hey.” He said as he passed them, waving and entering the Great Hall. 

They waited until the door was shut again. Hiccup let out a breath, schooling his expression. He had gone over how this conversation would go a million times in his head. It was possible Astrid wouldn’t believe him. He lifted his hand and showed the black scale to Astrid. She took it out of his hand, flipping it back and forth.

“What is this?” She asked. Hiccup tried to swallow down the lump in his throat.

“A-night-fury-scale-wait-please-hear-me-out!” Hiccup said in one breath. He watched as her face shifted into the familiar scrunched-down brows and annoyance. But she didn’t say anything. Hiccup clenched his hands into fists, trying to ground himself. “I think my bola launcher did hit down a night fury. I found it in the woods, ripped up and with these black scales.”

“Let’s say I believe you,” Astrid folded her arms, ice-blue eyes staring at him, “What does this have to do with Horrendous.” 

“C’mon, I’ll show you.” Hiccup started to reach out to grab her wrist but thought better of it, jerking his hand back before he could make contact. He speed-walked down to the forge, looking back a few times to make sure she was following. Her brow was still scrunched down, but apparently he had enough of her curiosity. 

He entered the forge and gestured to Horrendous’s armor, right where he’d left it on the table. She quirked an eyebrow at him and walked over to it, running a hand along it. Hiccup could see the moment it clicked, as she compared the scale and the armor. 

“It’s the same scales.” Astrid said, as if saying it would make it more solid of a fact. Hiccup nodded. 

“And if they’re night fury scales, then he’d have to have killed one to get armor like this.” Hiccup said, trying to ignore how his heart sped up at the thought of the man he was living with killing Toothless to make a new set of armor. 

“He said he saw the ones that attacked him, but he never mentioned killing them.” Astrid said, following his train of logic. “Killing one is something one would mention. So why didn’t he?”

“Exactly. So let’s show this to-” 

“No.” Astrid cut him off, shaking her head, still looking at the scale and the armor. “This isn’t more than just a hunch. We’ll need something more concrete if we want to get him.”

“Are you sure?” Hiccup asked. Astrid looked back up at him, determination clear in her expression and - miraculously - a small smile directed towards him on her lips. 

“Yeah. But now, Hiccup, we know we’re not just being paranoid. There’s definitely something to this.” Hiccup found himself mimicking her smile, scratching the back of his head, not used to so much attention from her. 

“Yeah.” He agreed. Astrid looked back at the scale, and then at Hiccup.

“... hey, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” 

“No, nah, don’t be.” He quickly said. “I claimed I did once, like, every month. And anyway, it got away, there’s definitely not a night fury on the island.” He winced, praying she’d take that last line as just another crazy think Hiccup said. 

“Still. Thanks.” 

Hiccup thought back to that brief glimpse of true flight he’d had with Toothless. Right now, he felt like he was in that brilliant moment again.

oOo

Going for a flight was exactly what Horrendous had needed. 

He was still relishing that feeling of freedom as he walked back to the Great Hall, Spine back in his pack. Hiccup and Astrid were standing outside of it, and he imagined she was grilling the young Haddock about what he was up to.

“Hey.” He said as he passed them. Neither gave any reply, but he hadn’t really expected them to. He didn’t let it bother him or wreck his good mood. 

No, seeing Eret awake was good enough at doing that. 

“Eret.” Horrendous almost shouted but caught himself last minute, so it kind of sounded like he was being strangled. The older man still heard it and turned to him, immediately standing up and pushing Ruffnut off of him. Horrendous had wanted to be there when Eret woke up, to fill the man in on what he’d figured out was going on here instead of being left to figure it out - or ruin Horrendous’s fake backstory. 

“H-” Eret said, the sound petering off in his throat as he made a clear effort to change what it was going to be, “-orrendous.”

“I wasn’t expecting-” Was all Horrendous managed to get out before Eret had cleared the distance between them and wrapped him in a tight and firm hug. He could feel as Eret’s shoulder dropped down, like a weight had been physically removed from his shoulders.

“You’re  _ alive.”  _ Eret breathed and then stepped back. He looked over his shoulder at the teens. “C’mon, let’s go back to y- uh,  _ Hiccup’s  _ house. I think we have a lot to catch up on.”

They left the Great Hall quickly, Eret mostly pulling Horrendous along the way. The second they got out, Eret looked around. The only people nearby were the quickly retreating forms of Astrid and Hiccup towards the forge. That seemed… odd, but Horrendous had other things to focus on. 

“You’re here.” Horrendous said, trying out the concept. “You’re actually here. I’m… I’m not alone.” His eyes burned as that sunk in. 

“You’re alive!” Eret repeated. “I mean, I’ve seen you in better shape, but, well, I was worried the worst had befallen you in the storm.” He admitted as they walked in the general direction of the Haddock house. 

“So time is still moving back at home.” Horrendous mused aloud. Eret nodded.

“It’s been storming since you left. What happened? Where are we?” 

“I wish I could tell you.” Horrendous sighed. “I remember the storm, but I must’ve fallen off of Toothless. He tried to grab me, but… I haven’t seen him since I got here.” He put his hand over where the bite still wasn’t completely healed up. “We seem to be in the past - I’ve found Toothless but I’m still in dragon training - and that’s about all I’ve figured out?”

“Well, I guess I should count myself lucky my trip here didn’t make me break a limb.” Eret nodded to Horrendous’s arm. 

“Oh, this was something else entirely. Got caught by some dragon trappers while looking for a dragon to help me search for Toothless.” 

Eret chuckled, shaking his head.

“Of course you would. What’ve you been up to?”

“Training some terrible terrors, lying every other word out of my mouth, a bunch of fun stuff.” Horrendous said as they got to the house, going inside. 

“So… that’s the plan? Try not to mess with the past?” Eret asked. Horrendous shrugged.

“I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to change how things turned out - I’m happy with the future I have. It made me who I am. I’ve already messed with some things without meaning too - so I guess I’m just trying to mitigate the damage?” Horrendous admitted. 

“Well, I can think of one thing we may need to worry about.” Eret said. They both went into Stoick’s room, closing the door behind them. Horrendous took off his pack and opened it up, letting Spine inspect the new person, climbing up Eret’s leg and to his shoulder. Eret scratched the dragon’s cheek.

“Besides ruining my life?” 

“Toothless is probably fine. I’ll bet he just can’t get to Berk with a broken tailfin. But Skullcrusher can fly perfectly well on his own.” Eret said and it clicked in Horrendous’s head.

“Skullcrusher’s a tracker dragon. He’s going to be coming here-”

“-to a village full of dragon-slaying vikings.” Eret finished, nodding. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, the chapter's shorter than usual.  
> in my defense, it's midnight and it seemed like a good stopping point.  
> also it hasn't been read through and i'm really sorry about that.


	11. Chapter 11

Horrendous sat back, admiring his work. 

It was late at night. The day had been much less eventful than the last. He’d spent most of it catching Eret up on what he’d been doing since he’d gotten here, as well as his back story - at least what he had of it so far. They’d gone and visited the dragons, the terrible terrors and Serrated acquainting themselves with Eret. A lot of the small dragons liked how his much broader shoulders made for much more comfortable perches, though Aorta, Spine, and Pine still preferred Horrendous to the point of hissing at the others if they tried to climb up. 

They’d also stopped by the dragon training, watching as the younger versions of Horrendous and his best friends scrambled around, trying to avoid the hideous zippleback. There were a few more vikings watching this time, and he caught some confused and amazed whispering as they watched Hiccup not get eaten.

Skullcrusher hadn’t shown up today, but Eret was wandering around the town at night, keeping an eye out. In the meantime, Horrendous had finally gotten some things done.

The saddle should be the right size, as well as the length of the wire down to the carefully crafted tailfin. He’d made it so many times that he could tell just by looking. It of course didn’t hurt that he’d stolen the blueprints that younger Hiccup had made up. Horrendous’s Toothless had grown, and many design-changes and addons had been made over the past few years, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and now was really not the time to be messing around with new theories on how to make the tail move even quicker or made the entire get up more aerodynamic or really if he just tweaked this one thing right here  _ no Horrencous stop messing with the designs stop it! _

It was… oddly comforting, seeing the saddle finished and ready for the night fury to wear. In the dark, Horrendous could almost image that the shadows under the saddle was actually Toothless, standing patiently while Horrendous secured the various straps of the saddle and they got ready to go out flying. 

“Hey, Hiccup, can I talk to you?”

Horrendous jumped and spun around. Eret was leading on the doorway, arms folded and expression somewhat grim. 

“What is it?” Horrendous left the saddle where it was and walked over to the table closer to the doorway, where he armor was laid out. He didn’t dare sneak out to get more scales from Toothless, so he’d been working hobblegrunt scales into the missing areas. Eret entered the forge, pulling up a chair next to Horrendous, setting a hand on the armor to help steady it while Horrendous worked with his one good arm - something he was actually starting to get quite good at. 

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about how our actions might not impact the future.” It had been on Horrendous’s mind too, ever since Fishlegs had mentioned it. “I think we should try and change their future for the better.”

“You say that our future is terrible.” Horrendous sighed. “I already told you that I think we should just try and keep things as normal as possible. I mean, younger me already almost died because we’re here. And what if we change things and then, I don’t know, Snotlout is married to Astrid when we get back.”

Eret put his other hand over Horrendous’s, stopping his work and forcing HOrrendous to look up. 

“Hiccup. What if we can’t get back? What if we’re stuck here for good? Dear Odin I hope not, but we have to face that possibility.”

The possibility had occurred to Horrendous - of course it had occurred to him, had plagued his thoughts as he tried to go to bed. Never seeing Astrid again, getting to hold her in his arms, never getting ot marry her. His village, left without a chief, without one - or now two - of its protectors. 

“But-” He started weakly.

“Hiccup, you could save your  _ dad.” _

Any and every rebuttal died in Horrendous’s throat. He… he could save Stoick. Maybe it wasn’t his Stoick, not his dad, but Hiccup wouldn’t be without his father… could he stop this Hiccup from losing his leg, too? Horrendous regretted none of his choices of the past, and his prosthetic leg made riding Toothless all the easier, but there were those nights where the terrible weather of Berk took its toll on the lost limb. Walking through mud was so hard to keep balanced, and it had taken him months to get strong enough, used to it, to run again.

And the Hiccup out there… he was the same age Horrendous had been, but that was still so young to have so much thrust on his shoulders.

“You’re right.” Hiccup sighed.

He held up his armor. There were still some spots missing scales, but it would do. He had Toothless’s saddle and fin and all the rigging that went with it. 

Surely, he’d been waiting too long as it was.

oOo

Horrendous left that night.

There was a bit of panic as they ran around the village as quietly as they could. Once Horrendous decided what he wanted to do, nothing was strong enough to stop him. Still, Eret wondered if he should’ve brought this up after Horrendous’s arm healed up. No point in regretting things now, though. All he could do was hold down the fort here in Berk. They snuck some fish from the Great Hall, as well as various other bits of food, but there wasn’t much they could steal away fro Horrendous on such short notice. Hiccup or Stoick (when he returns) would notice things missing, leaving Horrendous with only his clothes and armor. 

“I could look for Toothless.” Eret offered, almost begged. He couldn’t shake the last time Horrendous had flown off, away from Berk, without anybody with him. 

“Toothless is my best friend. I need to do this myself.” Horrendous insisted. 

Eret saw him off, waving goodbye as Serrated stretched his wings out and then took off into the air, his scales a pleasant yellow color. The thunder of terrible terrors followed them, Aorta at the head, but Spine stayed back with Eret. The injured dragon would still have a bit longer before his wing healed up. Spine sat on Eret’s shoulder, staring after the other dragons and making a few squeaking cries out to them. 

“It’s okay, they’ll be back.” Eret rubbed his thumb against the back of the dragon’s neck and it purred, head nuzzling Eret’s chin. 

He didn’t sleep the rest of the night, instead climbing up on a tall tree a bit of a ways from Berk, looking out for Skullcrusher. It was okay. Horrendous would come back. 

The sun began to rise, the sky lacking in its usually overwhelming cloud cover and Skullcrusher still nowhere to be seen. Eret climbed back down, landing lightly on his feet. He sighed and grit his teeth, knowing what he had to do but that not making it any easier. He pulled out a knife and made some slashes on his arms. Not too deep, he didn’t want to damage something important, but it had to look realistic too. His hissed through his teeth as he did so.

He scooped Spine up and into the carrier that Horrendous had left behind and ran back to the village, spots of blood being flung off of his arms and to the forest ground below as he went. 

He made a display of stumbling once he actually reached the village, falling to his knees and getting back up and falling again. A few people crowded around him, asking what was wrong, what had happened. He stuttered, he gasped for air, he even managed to make himself cry a bit. 

“What’s going on here? What happened?” Gobber asked, bending down to Eret’s level. He offered an arm to help him up and Eret took it, finally responding to someone. 

“A dragon. It took Horrendous.” Eret said, the words disjointed and broken up as he tried to breath. “Dammit, it took Horrendous!” 

There were horrified and sad gasps that surprised Eret. They shouldn’t have, really. Horrendous had a way of worming himself into many people’s good favors. And into some bad favors too, but that was just Horrendous for you. 

“C’mon, let’s get you some food.” 

Gobber led him away, up to the Great Hall. Eret spotted Hiccup and Astrid standing next to each other out of the corner of his eyes and he focused on them. Hiccup looked shocked, but Astrid’s eyes were cold and sharp and he knew with a surety in his gut - he always trusted his gut - that she wasn’t even remotely fooled by his display. With the closeness she displayed to Hiccup, running off with him so often, she was sure to share this with the young viking. 

Okay.

One against two. 

He’d worked with worse odds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a few different fics i've been working on, but I do plan to eventually finish this fic. I'm so glad that so many people seem to like it though!

**Author's Note:**

> So I have kind of a tentative plot? But it's mostly kind of 'see where this leads me'  
> If I ever get that far  
> Also, we're dealing with the kind of time travel that spawns a new timeline, so like, this doesn't effect the future at all. 'Cause that's a headache to deal with and I don wanna  
> Any suggestions, questions, comments, catastrophes, or concerns? Hit me up with a review!


End file.
